Fire subsides on huge cargo ship adrift in mid-Atlantic

By BARRY HATTON
Associated Press

LISBON, Portugal (AP) — A fire aboard a huge car transport ship adrift in the mid-Atlantic is dying out. A Portuguese navy officer said Tuesday that the massive  vessel is expected to be towed to the Bahamas. The blaze on the Felicity Ace has burned for six days, near Portugal’s Azores Islands. A Portuguese Air Force helicopter evacuated the 22 crew members last week. Two ocean-going tugboats with firefighting equipment have been hosing down the vessel’s hull to cool it. A harbormaster on the Azores island of Faial says the cause of the fire is not known, though suspicion has fallen on lithium batteries in electric vehicles the Felicity Ace was taking from Germany to the United States.