Fire broke out on Wednesday
evening on a U.S. Navy nuclear-powered submarine docked at the
Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in Maine, injuring four firefighters,
officials said.The cause of the fire is not yet known, but the vessel’s
nuclear reactor was not involved. There were no weapons aboard
the sub, which is at the shipyard for system upgrades and
maintenance.The fire started in the “forward compartment” of the
U.S.S. Miami, an attack submarine docked at the Kittery, Maine,
shipyard shortly before 6 p.m. ETFirefighters were still battling the blaze after 10 p.m.,
with equipment brought in from as far away as Boston’s Logan
International Airport, about 60 miles away.“The ship’s reactor was not operating at the time and was
not effected,” shipyard spokeswoman Tami Remick said by
telephone from Kittery.
Even at dock that sounds pretty scary. Glad it wasn’t out to sea!
Typically while in the shipyards there are two causes of fire. Electrical fires and fires caused by hot work such as welding, cutting, or brazing. Most are hot work related. I suspect that we’ll hear that some yard worker was cutting something and started a fire. The big question is, what was the fire watch doing at the time? All hot work is supposed to be a two man job. One working and one holding a fire extinguisher watching for fires.
If they are doing “hot work” near a bulkhead, the deck or the overhead, additional fire watches are required on the other side to ensure nothing is ignited by the transferred heat.
We had a fire on the USS Enterprise in a storeroom that was caused by a crewmember enjoying an illegal smoke break and failing to put out his butt completely (I don’t think they ever did figure out who the culprit was…lucky for him. It’s a really long swim home from the middle of the Atlantic).
There was enough air in the room to cause the combustible materials in the room to ignite, but when the air was depleted, it just smoldered…until the next person opened the hatch.
Then when the air rushed in, the room virtually exploded. I don’t think anyone died (IIRC) but several people were severely injured, it took quite a while to get the fire under control and it actually got so hot that some of the bulkheads around the store room melted and the fire spread to other spaces as well.
Not saying that’s what happened here, just relating a story that this one made me think of.
You’d think fires would be difficult to start in metal ships, but there are plenty of combustibles laying around to burn if they get the opportunity, and the whole “watertight compartment” thing just sets the stage for events like that one to become much worse than they may have otherwise been.
Kitchen fires aren’t uncommon nor are those caused by someone doing something blatantly stupid.
Had a couple of guys disassemble an old OBA canister to see what was inside it then they disposed of it in a big paper bag. For those not oldschool Navy, the canister generates oxygen using a chemical process and LOTS of heat.
You can guess the result.
I remember those! Those were fun!
Chances are that if it was at sea, this wouldn’t have happened. In addition to it likely being a construction related accident, the Navy spends a lot of time training submariners to fight fires while underway.
Hopefully none of the injuries were too serious and everyone recovers fully.
Pingback: Sub Fire Update! | Weer'd World