Local News

Police: 5 injured in boat fire at Braintree marina

Quick action prevented a potentially "catastrophic situation," according to one fire captain.

Firefighters try to put out the flames on a boat that caught fire at the gas dock of Metropolitan Yacht Club in Braintree on Saturday, Aug. 12, 2023. BRAINTREE POLICE DEPARTMENT

By Gwen Egan

August 13, 2023

1 minute to read

Five people were injured in a boat fire near the Metropolitan Yacht Club in Braintree Saturday morning, according to officials.

Braintree police said that quick thinking from a member of the yacht club prevented the fire from worsening.

The department posted on Facebook about the incident.

When the fire began, another patron of the yacht club, a retired police officer, quickly used his boat to pull the watercraft on fire into open water to avoid engulfing nearby vessels, according to the post.

The five injured passengers of the boat were taken to an area hospital to be treated for minor burns, smoke inhalation, and cuts, police said.

“This had the potential to be a catastrophic situation, but the quick thinking of the young woman at the fuel dock to hit the emergency shutoff, and the actions of the retired officer pulling the boat away from the dock prevented that from happening,” the fire captain said, according to NewsCenter 5.

Braintree Mayor Charles Kokoros thanked the club member and his daughter who jumped into action to stop the situation from escalating further, according to The Boston Globe.

“I would also like to commend our fire and police departments, and their marine units, for their exceptional performance in handling this situation,” Kokoros said in a statement.

Braintree harbormaster Ken Carson took to Facebook with an image of the fire at 11:38 a.m. Saturday morning.

The image shows another watercraft spraying the boat on fire with a large burst of water.

Carson followed up on Facebook with photos of the fire extinguished at 1:30 p.m. He said, although the fire was put out, that the boat was still floating in the area and to be careful when navigating around the marina.

The cause of the fire remains under investigation.