Sound the General alarm

The USS GEORGE WASHINGTON recently experienced a “serious” fire while on the way to San Diego to relieve the KITTY HAWK as the forward deployed carrier.

One sailor was treated for first-degree burns and 23 others for heat stress after a fire on a U.S. Navy aircraft carrier burned for hours, the Navy said Friday.

There were no fatalities on the ship.

Thursday’s fire on the USS George Washington in the Pacific Ocean off South America was classified as “serious,” Navy spokesman Cmdr. Jeff Davis said.

I know it’s different on a surface ship, but submarines fear fire more than anything else. Flooding, yeah we can handle that. Nothing’s taking away our oxygen. There’s time to work.

Fire. Forget that stuff.

Not only is it hard to see, it’s hard to breathe, and the combination makes it impossible to work for any length of time. Consequently, everyone on board fights casualties on the submarine. Part of it is because we just don’t have enough people on board to have a stand alone Damage Control party like the surface guys do. The other reason is because there’s no time to wait. Everyone turns to and gets the job done because if things aren’t under control in short order, then we’re all about to have some serious problems.

The enemy is always out there. It’s the ocean. And it wants inside the boat.

Glad no one was seriously injured on GW. I’m sure we’ll hear more about it in the following days.