Posted on 07/14/2020 8:16:16 AM PDT by KC Burke
The fire suppression system aboard the USS Bonhomme Richard was inoperable Sunday when flames engulfed the ship in San Diego, according to a top Navy official on Monday.
The Halon gas system “was not in operation just because it was being worked on” while the amphibious assault ship was undergoing maintenance at the shipyard, said Rear Adm. Philip Sobeck, the commander of Expeditionary Strike Group 3.
[snip]
(Excerpt) Read more at thehill.com ...
How convenient...
Halon systems are fir main space fires. Not throughout the ship.....
Mostly diesel spaces. Main spaces are too big.
More Convenience than a 24hr Walgreens....
More like typical. It is starting to look like the ship used that vehicle area as a laydown for contractors and SY. So most likely paint and assorted other crap that will burn. It’s not uncommon unfortunately. The ship would have been far better off if this happened underway.
Can someone explain to these goobers the difference between drywall and a tri-wall?
That ship should have been buttoned up completely...”MATERIAL CONDITION ZEBRA” It’s the tightest a ship can get and is employed to: PREVENT THE SPREAD OF FIRE” and or flooding.
makes me think of the Epstein innocent suicide
or OJ
its the improbability of all the facts which make greater sense.
“ That ship should have been buttoned up completely...”MATERIAL CONDITION ZEBRA” It’s the tightest a ship can get and is employed to: PREVENT THE SPREAD OF FIRE” and or flooding.”
*********
The Navy has not had a good run the past few years. I’m thinking someone’s @$$ is grass over this stupid event.
The Bonhomme Richard did not self immolate.
back in the old days, we fought our own fires in the Navy. when i read the statement from the San Deigo fire marshall my heart sank.
There are different types of Halon fire suppression systems and some of them are non-lethal. My first duty assignment was at the Intelligence Center Pacific (IPAC) at Camp Smith, Hawaii and they installed a system in the computer room below us and on our deck as well due to all of the specialized analysis equipment we had installed. They wanted to test the system and asked for volunteers which I did. Quite startling when it first goes off and it spewed forth a vapor cloud that smothers the fire vice removing the oxygen. Interesting side affect is that it had the opposite affect that helium has when inhaled and the female sailor down in the computer room during the test did not like the sound of her very deep baritone voice after the test.
I'm not a sailor. But when I saw this story, the first thing I thought about was Herman Wouk's (who served on minesweepers in WW2) novel The Caine Mutiny. The USS Caine is sent to San Francisco for an overhaul, and Wouk vividly described the chaotic state of the ship, with the civilian worker's tools, equipment and supplies scatted about, and the ship's own furnishings and material stacked everywhere, because compartments had been emptied for renovation.
They have been too busy with undermining and resisting President Trump, celebrating drag queens, pushing women to the top of the surface fleet, teaching destroyers how to avoid colliding with container ships, gay pride month for homos, trannies, etc. And they missed the nuts and bolts of Navy stuff.
If the fire suppression system is offline, and maintenance is going on, then there should have been very muscular alternatives on how to prevent a fire like this.
Very low quality leadership and training happening in our Navy.
Never served on a ship—but I have managed fire suppression systems in hospitals.
Every time we took the system off line we would have a security person standing with an extinguisher on every floor.
Yes, it looked silly. Yes, it consumed a ton of man-hours. But, we were not afraid of the building burning down—that wasn’t really possible. We WERE concerned with smoke control in patient areas. And...lots of O2 used on the floors.
I guess they did not want or think they needed to extend a fire watch.
Most firefighters these days - and one would think especially in the confined compartments of a ship - wear air tanks.
“Halon systems can kill fire fighters in the area [or others] as they remove all oxygen from the area they surpress. They have gone out of vogue for computer rooms due to the danger. “
totally ... surprised those things are still around ... decades ago they removed the one in the computer room where i worked as a systems analysis and network engineer ...
I believe that fire codes require large public venues with automatic fire control systems to have a firefighter sitting at the control panel if they switch off the automatic response, which they do for things like games or concerts with pyrotechnics.
Of course, as the San Antonio Spurs found out, you have remember to switch off the automatic response...
On my ship the halon protected spaces were the engine room and fire room. Pretty big spaces.,,,,
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.