{
  "id": 13124353,
  "title": "A chemical kept fishmeal from catching fire. Then scientists raised cancer concerns",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/10/09/a-chemical-kept-fishmeal-from-catching-fire-then-scientists-raised",
  "topic": "health",
  "section": "Health & Medicine",
  "published": "2026-10-09T13:01:51.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "Mongabay",
    "slug": "mongabay",
    "url": "https://news.mongabay.com/2026/10/a-chemical-kept-fishmeal-from-catching-fire-then-scientists-raised-cancer-concerns/"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": "On January 8, 1966, a South African ship caught fire at sea, and the blaze burned for five days at the port in Bristol, U.K. Later, on February 11, a Liberian steamship near Rotterdam suffered a fire that resulted in the sinking of the vessel. On March 19, a Danish ship off Long Beach, California, caught fire, injuring firefighters and killing a longshoreman, causing over $1 million in damages. These incidents were not isolated cases; fishmeal powder has been known to spontaneously combust since the 1950s, leading to at least 90 fires on ships and in plants worldwide through the 1970s. Fishmeal, a dark-yellow powder made by drying and pulverizing fish, is essential for aquaculture, including farmed salmon, shrimp, tilapia, and other species.",
  "summary": "This article is from Food for Feed, a series investigating the global fishmeal industry. It is produced by the Outlaw Ocean Project, a news organization based in Washington, D.C., and excerpted by Mongabay. On Jan. 8, 1966, a South African ship caught fire at sea. At port in Bristol, in the U.K., firefighters pried open […]",
  "key_points": [],
  "editors_take": null,
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 1,
    "also_reported_by": []
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}