Smoke on the water: US Navy seeks to quell shipboard fire potential

摘要

Since footage of the smoking, smolder-ing hull of amphibious assault ship USS Bonhomme Richard (LHD 6) dominated the news on 12 July 2020 the US Navy (USN) has had a need to not only identify the cause of the destructive blaze but also recognise what steps could be taken to prevent a similar future catastrophe.The USN is still reviewing its investigation findings a year after the Bonhomme Richard fire, but preliminary public comments during recent Congressional hearings and other associated media reports indicated the assault ship's fire was much like an attack submarine fire that also destroyed a major USN combatant nearly 10 years ago.Naval analysts say the lessons learned from the submarine fire and subsequent recommendations not only could have been applied aboard Bonhomme Richard, but used to prevent future fires of a similar nature aboard major warships during maintenance or other pier-side periods."It comes down to how quickly you can determine if there's a fire, how quickly you can put some firefighting agent on it, and how quickly you get people down there to respond," Bryan Clark, senior Hudson Institute fellow and senior fellow and director of the institute's Center for Defense Concepts and Technology, told Janes.Even though the USN has looked at more futuristic fire-prevention or fighting technology, the current recommended technological enhancements are relatively simple. Some have already been incorporated in the design of the new Ford-class aircraft carrier for improved fire prevention.