My now-deceased dad was an expert welder at Beth steel for 35 years, then Porstmouth, and being short (5’1’’) he was a favorite to work in subs. Of course you always had to have a fire watch, but on gov. ships, which took about 3 times as long to repair due to the regs,
And sometimes a piece of something could smolder or do a small burn and which small cases my dad was good at quickly blowing or smothering it out rather than using the fire extinguisher, for if a fire extinguisher was used even for a second then a lengthy investigation took place.
We had one major fire when I was on the ship. We were in the yards for three months in 1978 & shipmate and myself happened to discover it. It was a stioreroom fire. Heat transfer went up three decks real fast. It was a long night. I wasn't on duty but geared up to help do compartment checks.