NAVY CITES PROGRESS ON STILL-BURNING SHIP FIRE
Smoke dissipates; crews fight two main blazes on Bonhomme Richard on third day
As fire on the amphibious assault ship Bonhomme Richard continued for a third day, the Navy said its crews have made significant progress fighting flames and reducing smoke, but it is still unclear when the fire will be out.
Rear Adm. Philip Sobeck, commander of Expeditionary Strike Group 3, said the ship docked at San Diego Naval Base so far is stable and the structure is safe.
“We still have an active fire, which we are combating both from within and externally from multiple access points,” he said.
He said it’s too early to tell how much damage the fire has done to the ship and whether the ship will survive.
“When you look at the outside of the ship, you don’t get the full picture,” he said.
“We haven’t been inside of the ship well enough to get a full picture. It looks cleaner from the outside (but) inside, again, we’re still fighting a major fire.”
There are still two main fires burning, he said, one in the forward part of the ship and one aft. In the forward section, crews haven’t been able to get to the fire because it is too hot, he said.
Both fires appear to be in the upper part of the ship.
Crews have been trying to cool the metal in the ship since the fire broke out Sunday morning.
More than 400 sailors and fire crews from across the San Diego waterfront have been fighting the blaze, including sailors from the Bonhomme Richard, the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln and the guided-missile destroyer Fitzgerald and eight other ships.
Federal firefighters from bases throughout Southern California also came, some from as far away as Ventura County.
There have been 61 injuries; 38 sailors and 23 civilians have been treated mostly for minor injuries related to firefighting, the Navy said. The last five at the hospital left by Monday afternoon.
Navy helicopters from Helicopter Sea Combat Squadron 3 have made about 1,200 water bucket dumps, Sobeck said.
The Navy has been able to investigate the four main engineering spaces on the ship, and there’s no major damage there, he said. Also, the fire is still far away from the 1 million gallons of fuel the ship is carrying, he said.
Sobeck said the cause of the fire will be investigated once the flames are out.
There were a variety of circumstances that made the fire difficult to contain.
Sobeck said the ship was undergoing maintenance, and the cabling and ductwork for it were fed through doors, hatches and scuttles, preventing them from closing and contributing to the fire’s spread.
Also, cabling and ductwork created fuel for the fire and more debris that had to be removed before crews could get to the fire, he said.
Sobeck said on Monday that a shipboard firefighting system that uses Halon gas to suffocate fires was inoperable due to the maintenance.
Another system that uses aqueous film-forming foam to fight fires was operational Sunday when the fire broke out, but before sailors could activate it, there was an explosion and they had to abandon the effort, Sobeck said.
Once the fire started below in a lower vehicle storage area, it traveled upward to the “well deck,” which is a hangar-like open area with a lot of oxygen to fuel the fire, he said.
“Once the fire hit that amount of oxygen, it then found other ways to go up some ventilation ... and then went off to the races,” Sobeck said.
Water from firefighting had caused the ship to list on its starboard side Monday, but by that evening the list eased as crews continued pumping firefighting water out of the ship.
A photo recently posted on Reddit taken by someone on a Navy helicopter appeared
to show holes on the ship’s island superstructure, which includes the forward and main masts, the bridge and the air traffic control center.
The photo offers a peek into the extensive damage suffered on the island, where the forward mast collapsed Monday.
Navy officials declined to comment on the damage visible in the photo, saying the photo’s release was not authorized.
Sobeck said Tuesday he does not know when the fire on the Bonhomme Richard will be out, but it’s possible within the next 24 hours.
Smoke from the ship had abated significantly. Smoke and fumes from the ship had polluted the skyline and air throughout San Diego since the fire began at 8:30 a.m. Sunday.
As of Tuesday morning, smoke had substantially dissipated. The Navy is working with the San Diego Pollution Control District, Sobeck said. He recommended people continue following the county’s cautions about outdoor activities.
Capt. Timothy Barelli, of Coast Guard Sector San Diego, said his organization is taking precautions to minimize chances of water pollution
by putting booms in the water, but so far there is no sheen in the water to indicate an oil spill.
Some observers, including former sailors and naval experts, have questioned whether the Navy will scuttle or scrap the ship, but Sobeck said Monday he believes the Navy will ultimately repair it.
This is one of the biggest fires on a Navy ship outside of combat.
The Navy uses amphibious assault ships to deploy Marines in amphibious landings. During operations, the ships conduct flight operations with helicopters and jet aircraft, such as the AV-8B Harrier and its replacement, the F-35 B Lightning.
The Bonhomme Richard has been undergoing retrofitting in San Diego both in drydock and pier-side for extensive upgrades for F-35B fighter capability. The ship cost $761 million, according to estimates by the Federation of American Scientists, and was at the end of its twoyear, $250 million upgrade.
While deployed, these ships carry more than 2,000 sailors and Marines, but only 160 sailors were on the ship when the fire broke out.