Sea Stories: Firefighting and Damage Control Training

[Gunboat1]

Sea Stories: #40 - Firefighting and Damage Control Training

 

Navy ships are first and foremost fighting machines, equipped and intended to engage in mortal combat.  And when engaged in that contact sport, is it all-too-likely that you are going to take as well as give battle damage.   The Navy therefore sets great store by being prepared and trained to conduct firefighting and damage control operations.   Many sailors attend formal firefighting and damage control training schools.

A Navy ship is essentially a big metal box, full of lethal things, and living sailors.  Fire inside the box is incredibly bad juju.  Just look at this year’s news reports of a catastrophic fire aboard USS BONHOMME RICHARD (LHD-6).  She is now severely damaged, and unlikely to ever sail again.  She will cost $4 BILLION to replace.  Other historic ship fires which occasioned many losses of lives include USS FORRESTAL , USS BELKNAP, and USS ENTERPRISE.  None of these were occasioned by battle damage inflicted by an enemy. 

A ship’s crew is therefore her first line of defense with regards to firefighting.  And the crew must be organized, equipped, trained and drilled to perform this task effectively.  There are four basic types of fires, each requiring a different type of firefighting effort and agent. 

Class “A” – combustible solids, like paper, cardboard, mattresses, wood, and other conventional materials.

Class “B” – flammable liquids, such as fuel oil, gasoline, lube oil, cooking oil, or hydraulic fluid.

Class “C” – electrical fire, in an energized circuit.

Class “D” – special metals, such as sodium, magnesium, aluminum.  These burn at extremely high temperatures, and are self-oxidizing and therefore very difficult to extinguish.

The main firefighting effort on a ship centers around a team attacking the fire with a 1.5” or 2.5”  seawater-charged firehose, with a heavy nozzle. (This may be augmented by special liquid or aerosol agents to deal with Class B or D fires.  A Class C fire is fought with a CO2 extinguisher. )  The charged firehose is stiff, heavy and unwieldy.  Water itself weighs 8 pounds per gallon.  A firefighting team is actually two hoses, side by side.  One fights the fire, the other keeps the fire and heat off the firefighting party with a cooling spray screen of water.  This is a brutal, hot, exhausting and dangerous affair.  The nozzlemen and hosemen need great physical strength, stamina and courage to traverse up and down ladders and through hatchways, and to approach a blazing fire in a dark, smoke-filled compartment and do battle with it.  Nozzlemen require frequent relief, so the shipmate behind them moves up and takes the nozzle and the nozzleman falls back to rest, taking a more rearward position on the hose.  All of the party are wearing a heavy breathing apparatus, fire protective gear, boots and gloves.  They are sweating profusely and working at a high rate of physical load. 

Firefighting school simulates this environment on shore, by constructing multi-story metal structures similar in design to a ship’s interior.  Ladders, gratings, mesh catwalks, bulkheads, doorways, and bilges are all present, giving the students the same kinds of obstacles they will face on board ship.  Diesel fuel pipes run throughout the trainer, and can be controlled to spray fuel to put the fire wherever it is wanted, and to graduate its severity.  So a fire is lighted, and allowed to heat the metal structure to hundreds of degrees Fahrenheit and fill it with impenetrable smoke.  The team is then sent inside to battle the blaze, under the watchful eye of instructors.  It is as real as it can get.  And I can tell you from personal experience, it is HOT. You can barely see a thing in the smoky, sooty darkness.  All that is missing is the charred bodies of dead shipmates getting in the way.  Now imagine doing it at sea, inside a ship full of flammables and explosives, and with no one manning shutoff valves if the fire gets too intense.  

Damage control training is similar.  A training facility (usually dubbed “USS BUTTERCUP”) contains decks, hatches, doorways, pipes, flanges, and ladders,  It is built inside a larger box, so that it can be flooded with cold water, quickly, simulating seawater ingress due to battle damage.  Pipes can “rupture”, flanges can cut loose, bulkheads can weaken and threaten collapse.  A team is sent in, to deal with each type of damage.  They patch pipes spraying water at high pressure.  They plug holes in decks and bulkheads, shore up collapsing bulkheads, and pack leaking flanges.  This must all be done quickly, before the compartment they are in floods so deeply that the ship “sinks”.  You are soaked to the skin, shivering, and in simulated theory, about to drown.  And the most modern of these trainers can be made to list several degrees from level, adding a realistic feeling of a sinking ship.  Motivation to succeed is certainly instilled by the experience.  Now imagine doing it at sea, in the dark, deep inside the ship, with your ship sinking under you.

Eternal vigilance is the price of safety at sea.  And Damage Control is a brutally physical business.

 

Author’s note:  the US Navy has not taken significant battle damage from enemy action since 1987 (USS STARK (FFG-31))  and 1988 (USS SAMUEL B. ROBERTS (FFG-58)).  Both of those ships had all-male crews, and they still nearly lost their ships due to the severity of their damage.  The US Navy has simply forgotten what it is to have to fight battle damage aboard their ships on a frequent basis, and has sacrificed damage control readiness in the interest of political correctness.  It should be readily apparent to any person with a shred of intellectual integrity that a policy of manning combatant ships with as many as 20% female crew members who on average have 45% - 75% less upper body strength than their male counterparts is not a recipe for successful damage control under combat conditions.    Greater losses will definitely result in our next major sea war.  This is simply a fact.

Edited October 18, 2020 by Gunboat1

[aomagrat]

I've attended navy firefighting schools at Treasure Island, San Diego and Norfolk.  At Treasure Island and San Diego we fought real diesel fuel fires until we put them out.  At Norfolk, the last time I attended firefighting school, we fought fake fires with flames provided by hidden gas burners that were turned off when the instructors determined we were successful.  Gotta save the environment you know.

By the way,  don't forget USS Cole in 2000.

Edited October 15, 2020 by aomagrat

[Gunboat1]

3 hours ago, aomagrat said:

I've attended navy firefighting schools at Treasure Island, San Diego and Norfolk.  At Treasure Island and San Diego we fought real diesel fuel fires until we put them out.  At Norfolk, the last time I attended firefighting school, we fought fake fires with flames provided by hidden gas burners that were turned off when the instructors determined we were successful.  Gotta save the environment you know.

By the way,  don't forget USS Cole in 2000.

Good catch, I did forget about USS COLE.  17 dead and 39 wounded.

[DWARREN123]

Seems like people have to learn hard lessons over every once in awhile, especially the military!

[janice6]

18 hours ago, DWARREN123 said:

Seems like people have to learn hard lessons over every once in awhile, especially the military!

Military and politics are mutually exclusive, or should be.

[Gunboat1]

2 minutes ago, janice6 said:

Military and politics are mutually exclusive, or should be.

These days, they are one and the same.  40+ years of progressive seeding and weeding operations have just about emasculated the warrior officer corps.

And it clearly shows.

[flags]

My greatest fear onboard ship.

Had a fire onboard during a yard period in 78 and they evacuated. I still remember choking between the signal bridge and the quarterdeck. Stopped in a head and soaked shirt in water