Have a boom that circles the ship and is attached. If something happens, the boom is deployed by compressed air and circles the ship from 100ft out.
This holds the oil inside an area until something can be done. Like tossing a couple of skimmers in.
Being facetious of course. I’m not thinking of the robots themselves afire, but the ultimate fate of the oil that they collect (it does get added to the refinery input stream, doesn’t it?) And only Al Gore would care.