Fire Aboard Ship

The new sailors were gathered together as the Kitty Hawk churned up the water of San Diego bay, heading out to sea for carrier qualifications. I had been in the navy three years at that point, but never onboard an aircraft carrier. The salty old Chief Petty Officer began his dialog on shipboard procedures. We had already been told to salute the flag, salute the OD and request permission to come aboard, but this was a detailed informational summary of shipboard routines, including general quarters and fire events. The most important of which was what to do when the fire bell went off.

Fire is always a serious thing on a ship. It is not like a house fire where you can run outside and be safe. There is no choice other than to quell the fire, or die. The old Chief told us that when the fire bell went off to clear the passageways as the ship’s company had an excellent team of fire fighters and when headed to a fire they would knock you down like bowling pins in an alley when they were on their way to a fire and that was a true statement in those days. I was never on a destroyer or any other type of ship for any length of time, but on the Kitty Hawk there were a lot of fires. The ship was bulging with fuel for the ship, high octane aviation gasoline and regular jet fuel and gas for stoves in the three massive galleys on board. With all the machinery, electrical power, fumes and fuel spills, it seemed to me that that there was a fire of some sort every two weeks or so.

As I remember (46 years ago) it went something like this: ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ---- ding, ding. Then the boson announced over the 1MC the class of the fire, alpha (common combustibles), or class bravo (fuel, fumes) or class Charlie (electrical) fire at 03 (deck) frame 220 (how far back from the ship’s bow) 4C (how far over port or starboard of the keel line) and then “fire parties away!”

We shared our workspace on my second cruise with an avionics maintenance crew for a heavy-photographic squadron that had their cruise cut short by the fire on the USS Forrestal just a few months earlier. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1967_USS_Forrestal_fire If you follow the link there is a terrific photo gallery at the bottom of the page. That fire took 134 sailors lives and injured another 161. Believe me when I say that when the fire bells rang on that Kitty Hawk cruise those guys were jumpy!