I don’t know much about ships.
But during refitting, there are a lot of materials/tools/supplies not normally on the ship that might have been initial fuel for the fire.
A fully manned ship has fire crews and everyone is trained to respond and to isolate the fire from the rest of the ship.
Here the ship was hosting all kinds of contractors/civilian workers, and someone did not follow basic fire prevention protocol—ie like not having a firewatch on the other side of a bulkhead during welding operations.
The fire fighting system on board was shut down as it was undergoing maintenance.
Lots of factors will come out as making the task more difficult.
There is so much fire/water damage on the ship, to will be probably be less expensive to scrap it than to build all new systems. The hull may have been damaged by the heat of the fire.
The ship is more than 20 years old.A new amphibious assault ship might be a better use of the money, rather than trying to fix this old ship. Perhaps this ship can be repurposed into a training ship or logistics ship of some kind if the hull is still seaworthy.
John Lewis dead from pancreatic cancer.
80 years old.