OT- US Navy warship gutted by fire
So if you haven’t been following this, the amphibious assault vessel USS Bon Homme Richard caught fire Sunday around noon EST. As of this moment the ship is still burning and it appears the fire has consumed the vessel from the waterline right up to the top of the superstructure where the bridge is located. The major bright spot is that no one has been killed or seriously injured.
This is stunning. These are HUGE warships exceeded only in size by full fledged aircraft carriers, with all kinds of firefighting systems installed. For one to be so utterly ravaged by a dockyard fire is almost beyond comprehension. I really don’t see how she can be repaired for duty with this kind of catastrophic damage. If she is a total loss hasn’t been a US Navy vessel of this size lost since 1942.
2020 still finds ways to leave me in shock.
Spent about 6 months on LHD-6 in 2013. Beautiful ship and hope everyone is alright
Were you stationed in Sasebo? I was on the ship a few times there years ago.
Okinawa, 31worst MEU
Very grateful that there were no serious injuries. Fortunate this happened when the ship was in port and during the weekend when the most of the crew was not aboard. Hard to say at this point what will happen to the Richard. If the Navy can repair the Yorktown prior to Midway and the Forrestal during Vietnam, they still may be able to save her.
I've seen a few of the more recent reports suggesting that the current plans are to repair the ship.
The fire did not get into the ships fuel storage which has a million gallons of fuel on board and there is no ordnance on board.
Yorktown suffered only moderate damage from a single bomb hit at Coral Sea. In a pinch, she could have fought at Midway with no yard work done to her. The quick patch job at Pearl Harbor no doubt helped, but she wasn’t anywhere near as devastated as the BHR is.
Forrestal fire is probably a lot closer but, even there, her DC crews brought the blaze under control and damaged was confined to the rear part of the ship. The BHR has been literally blazing from stem to stern and the waterline to the top of the island for close to 24 hours now.
I just don’t see how a ship that gutted gets repaired. Especially one that’s 25 years old.
Thanks for posting. I was in San Diego on the BOXER when the “Bonnie Dick” was commissioned.
The ship had a reputation for being cursed even back then. The BOXER just returned to home port after a 6 month float and the BD was on the way to Pearl Harbor for her initial deployment. They lost both boilers and had to be towed to port.
We had to flip the ship and take her deployment. Nobody was pleased.
From what I've heard, she was in a refit period in port. So all of the ordinance, oils, and fuels, along with most supplies, had been removed. Also, it appears she was down to ~160 crew on board, a large chunk of whom would be ashore for the weekend. No (few) shipyard workers would be there on a Sunday, but they wouldn't help with any damage control efforts, anyway, except to get out of the way. Unlike submarines, where DC is an all-hands affair regardless of the problem, skimmers have an actual fire brigade. I suspect that fire fighting team was drastically short of manpower. I also heard that the crew gave up on fighting it and just abandoned efforts fairly early on. This would be an obvious choice given manpower and severity of the fire. From my (decades old) Navy experience, it sounds like the hull insulation caught. That stuff burns hot and quick, and is the last thing you want catching - other than fuels and ordinance. If that's what happened I don't blame a skeleton crew for bailing early, at all...
The damage done will decide if it's worth rebuilding, or dragging her to a scrapyard. If it's replacing insulation and some wiring, it'll be rebuilt. If it's anything like what happened to the USS Miami, she'll be retired.
Couldn't have said it better. Former DCA on an amphib in San Diego.
I have heard from several of my former shipmates that the early word is it's a total loss.
I am not a navy or military person myself, but from a couple articles I've read, it sounds like the fact it was in for a refit contributed to the fire getting out of hand. As in, fire suppression systems and safety systems turned off for repairs, etc. It also sounds like the problem may be due to a lack of adherence to basic fire safety protocol. Too soon to say for sure, but apparently that has been a larger topic of focus, even in San Diego.
I read this too - but I don't understand the firefighting options and detection for that matter active vs. retrofit. I don't think it means much until they determine the root cause and the if then scenarios have traction. Probably this would have been detected sooner and fought sooner with interventions that could have prevented the catastrophic loss. We've got to hold for the discovery at this point.
This is a huge loss. I hope this doesn't get buried like other stories have.
One of the Navy’s biggest fears is shipboard fire while in an avail or worse, dry dock.
We drill for this annually and this seems to be a worst case scenario, unfortunately.
It will be interesting to follow this. It’s a lot more expensive to fix it, but getting a new ship through Congress is never an easy task.
First of all - smart to back off this fire. I'm glad the injury was minimized.
This is helpful beyond the stories I can find. I really appreciate this insight.
The root cause is going to be interesting. There is little doubt it will be found, vetted and refit staffing and procedures modified.
Is there any hazardous concern from the smoke and debris from this fire. If this is the insulation - this is probably toxic waste in the air down there.
VaBlue - this is good stuff ... thanks for offering this.
Hull insulation is very noxious and toxic, so you have to fight the fire in full-on breathing apparatus. If no fire brigade members are in the vicinity, other crew will just clear out and try to seal off the compartment. I don't know what happened, but if it's insulation, just get out. Takes a lot for it to catch, but once it does there is virtually no stopping it. And it can jump through compartments if they aren't sealed properly. The Miami's insulation caught when a yardbird started a fire in a trash can to get the day off - it burned out the entire operations compartment.
You can also google the fire onboard the USS Bonefish to learn about insulation fires. She was underway when a battery fire started and quickly spread to the insulation. Once that was going, the CO surfaced the boat and sent all crew topside. They eventually had to jump off, into the water, to get away from the heat coming through the pressure hull from the burning insulation (3 people died in the smoke and fire).
Lesson: if the insulation catches, you've lost - get the hell out.
Miami is the perfect example as she was in the yards as well.
I can’t remember how many firemain pumps there are on an LHD, but it’s a lot. If they were in a major Avail period you can bet a good portion of the system was offline.
Good points. There are so many firefighting challenges when a ship is in the yards. All kinds of crap in the p-ways and the hatches are all secured open because of said exhaust & cable strapped to the overhead.
Also, local firefighters might not be familiar with shipboard FF. That was part of the problem with a civilian ship in Jacksonville about a month ago. A bunch of them were hurt pretty badly.
Sabotage