I am not a sailor but it does sound improbable that a big ship with a big crew could have a big fire onboard for three whole weeks without anyone noticing it’
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Read an article years ago that the fire was deep in a coal bunker against the hull. Some evidence that the steel in the hull had too much carbon in it and combined with the heat of the fire made the hull in that area very brittle. Given quality controls for steel production were not exactly what they are now, entirely plausible scenario.
A coal bunker fire was common during the period. The packed in coal would smolder and there was little the crew could do to put them out, since the smolder was inside the giant pile. Ships usually had an automatic sprinkling system to dampen the coal pile if it got dangerously hot. Passenger Ships were in virtually no danger from them. I assume the Titanic had such a sprinkler system.
Those that knew, probably died in the bowels of the engine room. The fire was in the engine room.
There is actually an underground out-of-control coal fire in Pennsylvania that has been burning for over 50 years in a relatively small area. There is nothing that can be done for it but to let it burn itself out.
The fire started around 1962 and it didn't really gain notoriety until the late 1970s. During the early 1980s they had to pretty much evacuate and shut down the town that was over it. It's a fascinating story. The fire is expected to continue for hundreds if not thousands of more years.
— The Seed of McCoy. Chief magistrate and governor of Pitcairn Island and a descendant of the mutineers from the Bounty who settled there, McCoy boards the ailing Pyrenees, a tall ship that has been on fire for two weeks. Hoping to save the hull, the captain is searching for a beach to scuttle the ship and McCoy volunteers to lead them to an ideal spot. The voyage goes on longer and longer while the ship grows hotter and hotter. A fire is one of the deadliest events a sailor can encounter aboard his ship and London does a tremendous job ratcheting tension, while the islander McCoy handles each obstacle in his typically unruffled island manner.
I remember reading that story of the ship with a fire that couldn’t be put out (a wooden-hull ship, too) as a kid. I still remember the suspense of reading that.
Not offering this as evidence, but Jack London (who was a sailor), obviously believed that a story of a ship in chronic under-the-deck flames was believable.
Surely you’ve heard the rumor that the Olympic and the Titanic were switched for the insurance money?
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Who said no one was noticing it?
Hundreds of steamers were sunk due to coal fires in their fuel bunkers.
Its not that no one notices, but that there was little that could be done.
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