Shipboard fire

The Navy puts great emphasis on firefighting, and for good reason. Fire, if not controlled, will gut a ship, and force her crew to abandon her, leaving them at the mercy of the sea. Every sailor learns how to fight fire in boot camp, and those in engineering ratings, like I was (I was a Machinist's Mate), get even further training once on board a warship. As such, engineers are usually part of the Mobile Repair Party, a section of each duty roster set aside to respond in case of fire or flooding.1

I was one such sailor.2

My first actual shipboard fire happened on the U.S.S. Prairie (AD 15)3

It was a small electrical fire in the Main Switchboard Room. I think what i remember most about it was the smoke. There no flames, or at least none that I could see, but the smoke was pretty thick, and the electrical wires burning left a very  recognisable scent all through the room. I will never forget it. I wasn't scared, because electrical fires are easy to fight. all you have to do is shut the power off, and anything still burning, you hit with CO2 until it goes out. 4

Although the Prairie fire gave me some experience, nothing really prepared my for the next time.5

While serving aboard the U.S.S. Texas (CGN 39) I was deployed on a WESTPAC (Western Pacific) cruise, that took me to the Persian Gulf. This was during the Iran-Iraq war, in the early 1980s. Both countries were fighting over land, and both countries HATED America, so tensions were high. Iran sold oil to finance the war, and so Iraq began shooting Chinese-made Silkworm missiles at any ship buying oil from Iran. It was one such ship, a Greek tanker, that we had come to assist. The Greek ship had been hit by a Silkworm, and was burning badly when we arrived. We responded to her SOS by pulling alongside, and spraying the burning vessel with AFFF (Aqueous Film Forming Foam), to suppress the flames. As the fires retreated, firefighting teams boarded the tanker, I among them. The thick, black smoke of the oil fire was a sharp contrast from the pale, grey smoke I had encountered before on the Prairie. It was so heavy that we needed our OBAs (oxygen breathing apparatus) to breathe, even on the open deck. The heat was ungodly, even with the applicator hose protecting us. 6

I was running on pure Adrenalin the whole time, barely thinking of the danger. It was as though I was watching myself in action, a mere observer instead of a participant, so completely had my training taken over. I cannot remember how long it took to put out the fire, hours, or just minutes, but eventually we won the fight, and now set our labors to assisting the crew of the tanker in shoring up the damage, and making the ship seaworthy for her journey home. It was then that I first saw a dead body. One of the Greeks had been killed in the missile strike, and his body had been charred by the fire. I will never forget that smell.7

At long last the Greeks thanked us for our assistance with a huge feast, and the fire-teams went back to the Texas. The two ships parted ways, and Captain Andress gave the fire-teams a 24 hour stand-down. We were all utterly exhausted, not to mention dirty, so we needed no prompting to hit the showers and then our racks. 8