Fire room

The steam was then transmitted to a separate engine room, often (but not always) located immediately aft, where it was utilized to power the vessel.The fire room got its name from the days when ships burned coal to heat steam to drive the steam engines or turbines; the room was where the stokers spent their days shoveling coal continuously onto the grates under the boiler; poor men could sometimes pay for a trip across the Atlantic by signing on to work as a stoker for a one way trip, laboring in exchange for a temporary place on the crew.Later heavy fuel oil came into use, first combined with coal, then alone, as the petroleum industry developed, and the cleaner, easier to transport, load and burn liquid was found to be far superior once the appropriate logistical network was set up.In rare occasions, when flank speed was called for, all boilers would be burning at once, generating a great deal of steam for high-speed operation, but at a very inefficient rate of coal consumption.Fire rooms employed some means of providing air for the operation of the flame to ignite the oil and associated ventilation.These were abandoned when the forced draft occasionally failed and blowback occurred killing fire room personnel.A typical arrangement might be to make the opening large enough to provide intake air plus 1,000 cubic feet (28 m3) per Minute (CFM) for additional ventilation.