Posted on 07/12/2020 11:27:54 AM PDT by bitt
An explosion erupted as a roaring blaze was reported on a military assault ship at Naval Base San Diego Sunday morning, according to authorities.
Plumes of smoke arose from USS Bonhomme Richard as firefighters battled the three-alarm blaze on the 3400 block on Senn St. The vessel is an amphibious assault ship homeported in San Diego, according to Krishna Jackson of Naval Base San Diego.
The ship had undergone a regular maintenance cycle before the fire was reported, Jackson said. Crew members typically are aboard the ship on weekends, but there are fewer than on weekdays.
Several sailors are being treated for injuries, according to the San Diego Fire Department. The extent of their injuries is unclear and authorities did not say how many sailors were injured.
It is unclear what sparked the fire.
This follows the series of mysterious fires and explosions in Iran.
I fought a main space fire at sea too and it was a scary experience. The steam-leak incident inport that melted a sailor was even scarier.
I can’t imagine how it got out of hand without someone noticed it that they had to abandon ship.
Unless restrictions have been lifted since the last time I was on a military installation, I don’t see how any hate groups could get close enough to a ship to do any damage. Of course they could infiltrate, but that would be risky in this day and age.
I remember the “Bonnie” from when we were stationed in San Diego in the 60s.
Most probably a different ship altogether, but the name will continue to live on as long as we have a navy.
‘Face
:o]
ad hominems are totally uncalled for as is the effort to label this incident sabotage when no on knows the cause - you are just spreading falsehoods and panic like a troll might - don’t be that
USS Bonhomme Richard's Bridge Engulfed In Flames As Fire Rages Into The Night (Updated)
The blaze appears to have migrated to the ship's superstructure that is packed full of sensors, communications gear, weapons, and much more.
By Tyler Rogoway July 13, 2020
baa-numb
French for Good Man
Fire aboard a ship is quite a hazard, but ships can undergo terrible fires and be repaired.
It is when ships have terrible fires that set off internal explosions that the watertight integrity is often compromised.
That happened quite often in the early part of WWII for our navy, when our damage control techniques had not fully matured. There were a few cases where crews were battling issues with watertight integrity due to torpedo damage or shells that hit below the waterline, but most of the time, it was the progression of fire and uncontrolled explosions that caused us to give up on trying to save a capital ship.
One of the best books on this is "Neptune's Inferno" which describes the sea battles around the Solomon Islands in mid-late 1942.
Our navy learned a lot about damage control from those events. After the Battle of Savo Island, the order went out to all ships to rip up linoleum coverings on decks, get rid of flammable furniture where possible, and chip paint down to bare metal and repaint with a single coat.
Apparently, the furniture and decking found on larger ships produced extremely toxic smoke that made damage control harder, and a lot of those ships had years of paint, inches thick in some places, which caused fires to spread from compartment to compartment, also producing debilitating smoke.
I have often wondered how much the furniture and flooring helped, maybe a little, but having been on some ships in the past that looked like paint had never been removed, only added on, makes me think that was the major part of that effort.
Certainly in the removal of the paint, which must have been a massive job. In Samuel Eliot Morison's "The Two Ocean Navy", he has a reference to that with a paragraph:
"Many lessons were learned from this disastrous battle. Canberra and Astoria might have been saved bu for their heavily upholstered wardroom furniture, and the layers of paint and linoleum on their bulkheads and decks. All inflammable furniture and bedding was now ordered ashore, and every ship in the Navy was ordered to scrape down her interior to bare steel; day and night for the resto of 1942, sounds of chipping hammers were never still. Improved fire-fighting technique and the "fog nozzle", far superior to a solid stream of water, were developed; communications were improved; and officers adopted a more reasonable battle-readiness condition which relieved them and their men from continual tension."
Savo Island was a terrible defeat (almost a thousand men killed in less than one hour between 0143 and 0240 when Mikawa broke off and sortied back to their base) but it sounds to me like that was the genesis of today's excellent damage control our Navy has tried to instill in its crews since then.
Of course, the point you made about the decline of readiness due to purging of the ranks and the implementation of social experimentation in this navy is spot on.
Nope, Mobile, Alabama. The shipyard, Bender Shipbilding & Repair, is no longer in business.
I enjoy visiting Mobile and checking out the USS Alabama. Interesting naval heritage there.
It was also the losses from Okinawa due to fire from Kamikazes if I remember the lecture correctly. They showed us a film in training, I think it was called Trial by Fire.
My grandfather was on a tin can at Okinawa. His ship was hit by a suicide boat. He said the threat of kamikazes scared the heck out of him and he preferred being below deck during combat.
Just saw a report on ABC news that said what crew was on board was evacuated pretty quick. That just sounds odd to this ex sailor. I can’t wait to hear the exact details of this fire.
I’m a little bit uncomfortable with the fact there are apparently no major injuries amongst the hospitalized crew. That is a good thing, obviously, but it appears they abandoned the ship very quickly and now a $1.5 billion ship is burned to the waterline.
Before you start swearing at people maybe you should read about the coming Chinese moves on the Spratly islands and the chances that it was sabotage..this is 2020. Not 1950.Dont make the mistake of fighting the last war.
Any current live streams of the fire this morning? Did a search on San Diego news feeds earlier and haven’t seen any, probably too early out there.
Not that I know of and not much on cable
The crew was fortunate to be docked alongside a pier facilitating their safe exit. Having served a couple of years on a warship in the USN, including 10 months off the coast of Vietnam, I have no problem with the crew getting to safety as quickly as possible.
Thank you.
Excellent post! Thank you.
I’ve been looking for live streams and the only one I saw was a short live report by one of the San Diego TV stations. They were far off and only smoke could be seen. The reporter offered nothing other than the fire continues.
That is my take as well...some of the genius commenters here on FR seem to think that ships in maintenance mode are fully crewed and ready to immediately get underway.
Heck, on weekends and holidays on the CAN I was on, we were lucky to get a decent meal.
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