The dive boat was engulfed in flames off Santa Cruz harbour. Credit:Santa Barbara County Fire Department There was a fire burning uncontrollably in the galley of the 20-metre Conception just after 3am on Monday, US time, a blaze that would consume the boat, which was filled with divers on a private excursion and the tanks of oxygen they used to explore the depths. The guests, sleeping tightly packed in stacks of bunk beds below, were trapped. Five of the crew members were able to escape into the waters near the shores of Santa Cruz Island, but authorities fear the rest were lost. Santa Barbara County Sheriff Bill Brown said on Monday night that eight people were confirmed dead and that 26 were still unaccounted for, including one crew member. After burning, the boat sank in about 20 metres of water, its bow exposed above the water. "Fire is the scourge of any ship," Brown said. "To be in a remote location, have a fire that occurs and have limited, if any, firefighting capabilities, and then have, all of a sudden, a fire that spread very, very rapidly - you couldn't ask for a worse situation." Loading Replay Replay video Play video Play video

US Coast Guard Captain Monica Rochester said the search would continue but she added a word of warning: "I think we all need to be prepared to move into the worst outcome." The five crew members who paddled away as the ship went up in flames banged on the hull of a nearby boat seeking help, and one crew member recounted the story to a couple on board. It was not immediately clear how the crew had been unable to rescue the passengers. Asked if the crew tried to help others aboard, Rochester said, "I don't have any additional information." A woman who came to the harbour said, "My son was on that boat." She was led away by a Ventura County firefighter, AP reported. Santa Barbara City Search and Rescue and Santa Barbara Sheriff's officers move a recovered body onto the dock. Credit:AP

The crew put out a mayday alert from the smaller ship, while they could feel the heat and hear the pops of small explosions from the divers' tanks on the Conception. Two crew members went back in an inflatable boat to search the water for survivors. And the Coast Guard began searching the area, hoping that some passengers might have been able to make the short swim to shore. But as morning turned to day, and day again to evening without a sign of the other 26 people on board the ship, a grimmer reality set in. The fire is likely to be one of the deadliest recreational maritime disasters in recent memory. Officials did not yet say what sparked the blaze or what made it so deadly. Shirley Hansen, 73, was asleep with her husband in their boat, Grape Escape, a few hundred metres away when they heard banging on the hull. They found five men, the crew from the other ship, shirtless in an inflatable boat, seeking refuge. One of the men told her a 17-year-old girl on board was among those who celebrated a birthday that night. "We felt so helpless because you're just sitting there," Hansen said. "We did what we could, but to watch, and you know there are 34 people over there, and there is nothing you can do to stop the flames."

Local resident Maya Upton places flowers at outside of the Sea Landing at Santa Barbara Harbour on Monday. Credit:AP The men, she said, were in tears. The efforts the crew made to put out the fire on the ship before escaping were not immediately clear. Hansen said that one of the men had a broken leg after jumping from the ship's bridge to the deck as he fled. The dive boat, Conception, had been on a three-day trip to the scenic waters around the islands for the weekend, where divers could eat, sleep and relax in between days of dives. Loading

A California-based dive company that had chartered the ship for the Labour Day weekend advertised that it would be a fun-filled journey. "Nutrient rich waters bathing this island bring BIG fish: halibut, bugs, rockfish, wolfeels, lingcod," the description said. "The precipitous geology at Boomerang, Skyscrapers, Richardson's and Wilson's Rock will blow you away. The island also hosts pristine shallow reefs hosting an incredibly diverse collection of sea life. Night dives are delightful; octopi roam the reefs and bioluminescent zooplankton flash colours to silhouette the diver." Tickets were $US665 ($990). The boat was scheduled to come back on Monday afternoon. Conception is one of three dive boats operated by Truth Aquatics, a 45-year-old company based in Santa Barbara that has a sterling reputation among the local diving community. A person who answered the phone at the company's office in Santa Barbara declined to comment. Coast Guard officials said they believed the ship was in compliance with all regulations, and did not have any violations of note. The Conception can sleep up to 46 people on 13 double bunks and 20 single bunks that are stacked two and three high, and has a large galley and a pair of air compressors to fill the divers' tanks.

The diving tanks - usually filled with compressed oxygen or a nitrogen/oxygen mix known as nitrox - might have fuelled the fire; Hansen said she heard and saw bursts each time a tank exploded on the boat. Andy Taylor, owner of Blue Water Hunter scuba certification in Santa Barbara, said he had several friends who were on the Conception over the weekend, but he has yet to hear what happened to them. "We're all just waiting," he said. The Conception was stolen in 2005 by a homeless man, who after unmooring it, motored north to an Air Force base where he ran it aground. The boat underwent a more than $US1 million refurbishment after the wreck, making it among the most modern in the local dive fleet. Taylor said the ship's captain was known for his trustworthiness. "Our hearts are with the families and loved ones affected by this tragic incident," California Governor Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, said in a statement. "As we wait to hear more, we are eternally grateful for our heroic first responders that are on site - working to ensure every individual is found."

Earlier police divers from law enforcement jurisdictions in Santa Barbara, Ventura and Los Angeles counties scoured the wreckage for bodies while other emergency crews searched the land around the site for survivors. The fire is likely to increase scrutiny on the safety of dive and other touring boats. Democrat Senator Dianne Feinstein, called for a federal investigation. "We must know what fire-suppression systems and other emergency equipment are in place on these boats and whether they were in working order on the Conception," she said in a statement. "And we need to understand exactly how the crew was trained and, if they were awake and above-deck, why they were unable to alert or help rescue passengers. A tragedy of this nature is simply unimaginable." An average of about 650 people die in the US each year in boating accidents, according to statistics from the US Coast Guard from the past 20 years. The majority of those are from collisions with other boats or other objects, with operator inattention and improper lookout as the two primary factors investigators have assessed in accidents. But serious problems from fires are less common. According to Coast Guard data, four people died in 256 fire incidents in 2018, and all of those were from fires that stemmed from fuel explosions. The National Transportation Safety Board said it was sending a team to California to investigate the fire; the FBI was also involved.

Hansen said that one of the crew members told her his girlfriend was sleeping beneath the deck with the other guests. "If more people had gotten off that boat," she said, pausing, "we had room for them." The Washington Post