On the night of 25 July 2023, a fire broke out in the loading area of the ship in the North Sea off the coast of the Netherlands.

Fremantle Highway caught fire off the coast of the Dutch island of Ameland around 11.45 pm (CET) on 25 July 2023 while en route from Bremerhaven, Germany, due to arrive in Egypt's Port Said on 2 August 2023.

K Line and Shoei Kisen Kaisha stated that the ship was bound for Singapore and carried approximately 3,000 cars.

The fire and potentially sinking ship was causing environmental risks, as Ameland is in the Wadden Sea area spanning the Netherlands, Denmark and Germany and has been declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site, with more than 10,000 aquatic and terrestrial species.

[5] Dutch and German tugboats and fireboats were ordered to attend to the burning ship, as well as an oil-recovery vessel in case of a leak.

The owner of Fremantle Highway contracted the Dutch heavylift company Royal Boskalis Westminster for the salvage operation.

[9] On 29 July, Fremantle Highway was towed away from its dangerous berth, eastward off the Wadden Sea island of Schiermonnikoog.

[10] On the afternoon of 30 July, two tugs managed to start towing to the provisional sea position north of Schiermonnikoog.

[7] The still-burning freighter arrived at its new provisional anchorage around midday on 31 July after a risky transport along the Wadden Sea islands.

[11] On 1 August, a team of experts went on board of Fremantle Highway and deemed there were no remaining visible fires and that the hull of the ship was in an acceptable condition.

[12] The CEO of the salvage company Boskalis warned that enormous forces were already acting on the ship's high flanks.

[14] There has been much speculation that the battery pack from an electric car caused the fire, but this proved to be wrong when offloading the ship.

[21] Christian Meyer, minister for the environment of Lower Saxony, a German coastline state, demanded better safety and environmental standards for commercial ships.

Meyer recalled the past ship disasters with the MSC Zoe, in which several containers fell overboard and landed near Borkum in 2019, and the Pallas, which was wrecked off the German island of Amrum in 1998.

[22] German nature conservation organization NABU demanded that the protection of the Wadden Sea should have priority over economic interests.