This is going to sound super-stupid but I’ll ask anyway: I know every sailor is a fireman. But does the Navy have teams of damage control specialists that train as intensely as their SEAL teams do? Imagine every naval base having a body of sailors—depending on the size of the base and the kind of the ships that routinely call—whose speciality is to augment (and maybe direct) the extinguishing of fires and neutralizing of other hazards to ship in port? And like the SEALs they train up constantly until called for a mission.
Maybe everything that could be done was done for the BHR. But it seems like the Navy loses a lot ships to events that were either preventable or manageable.
Yes. Each ship has a primary fire control crew that receive more than cursory training.
Every ship has a dedicated fire-fighting team. In my day they were called, "flying squad". They don special gear with a breathing apparatus and train their ass off, at least they use to. The flight decks have/had a special unit called the "crash crew" They wore those silver reflective suits. If they couldn't kill the fire immediately, the entire flight deck crew were called into action with sea water hoses. One of more fight the fire and one that sprays down the crew as they move in. I went through countless training on my flight deck, and I was just an ABF wearing working uniform, plus the head gear everyone has seen and a inflatable life preserver.
There were and probably still AFFF foam systems that hosed down the deck. The trick is not to wash the foam away with the water hoses. Someone help me out here if I have it wrong - too many years.