Navy puts out fires aboard USS Bonhomme Richard after four days of fighting blaze

The Navy extinguished all known fires aboard the USS Bonhomme Richard after more than four days of fighting the devastating blaze, a top service official said Thursday.

The Navy does not yet know the cause of the fire that began Sunday morning as the amphibious assault ship was in the port at Naval Base San Diego. 

“Our fire teams are investigating every space to verify the absence of fire. Until every space is checked and there are no active fires we will not be able to commence any official investigations,” Rear Adm. Philip Sobeck, commander of Expeditionary Strike Group Three, said in a statement. 

Sobeck — who in the past few days has expressed optimism that the ship would sail again — said that the Navy does not yet know the extent of the ship’s damage and that it is “too early to make any predictions or promises of what the future of the ship will be.”

The fire first broke out on the USS Bonhomme Richard — a small aircraft carrier that transports Marines — in a lower cargo area, where cardboard and drywall supplies were kept. The ship was undergoing maintenance at the shipyard when the blaze began.

The fire suppression system aboard the vessel was inoperable at the time due to the maintenance work, Sobeck said Monday.

As a result of the fire, 63 personnel — 40 sailors and 23 civilians — were treated for minor injuries including heat exhaustion and smoke inhalation.

Sobeck said Thursday that hundreds of sailors and federal firefighters battled the flames from inside and outside the ship, with helicopter squadrons dropping more than 1,500 buckets of water on the vessel and nearby tugboats spraying water to cool the ship’s hull.

Early Thursday morning, crews were forced to evacuate the pier when the ship began listing but later returned and ultimately extinguished the blaze.

The fire, though put out, has also raised environmental concerns, as the blaze sent acrid smoke clouds over San Diego and the Coast Guard has contracted an Oil Spill Response Organization to preemptively guard against any potential fuel spills or other debris.

“The Navy continues to work together with regulators, county and state in protecting our environment and preparing to address the community’s concerns as we move forward to the next phase,” Sobeck said.