Fire on Baltic Sea ferry is out, no injuries

STOCKHOLM (AP) - A fire was reported Monday on a passenger ferry carrying nearly 300 people from Sweden to Latvia but officials said the blaze - which they described as 'œlimited'ť - was put out. No one was reported injured.

The ferry was north of Sweden's Baltic Sea island of Gotland when the fire broke out. No one was evacuated but one person on the ferry said passengers had gathered on the upper deck.

The Swedish ferry company Stena Line said 241 passengers and 58 crew members were onboard the Stena Scandica that was traveling from Nynashamn in Sweden to Ventspils in Latvia. The fire was on a refrigerated truck.

The vessel will be towed to Nynashamn with all its passengers, said Lisa Mjörning of the Swedish Maritime Administration, according to the Swedish news agency TT.

Seven nearby ships and three helicopter were sent to the scene as a precaution.

Earlier in the day, Stefan Elfström, a spokesperson for Stena Line, told Swedish broadcaster SVT that the company was informed about a fire 'œon a limited scale'ť with no reports of injuries.

Norwegian newspaper VG quoted passenger Giedrius Didoras as saying that passengers all had gathered on the upper deck.

'œThe ferry has stopped,'ť he said. 'œWe can't see any of the flames, but we can see smoke coming from both sides of the ferry.'ť

The Goteborg, Sweden-based ferry company says it is one of the word's largest ferry companies, with 38 vessels that take more than 25,000 trips a year. It has 4,300 employees across Europe.