USS Miami fire

[Osmium Steele]

Originally Posted by Catfish

Of course the bow is far enough away from the reactor. And a reactor is always operating and has to be cooled, even with all rods in.

I wonder how such fires can start, i mean there must be some automatic fire control ?

688s only have 2 watertight compartments. The reactor compartment, while watertight itself, is considered part of the aft compartment. The only thing between the forward compartment and the reactor is the fuel oil tank, which should have been empty or filled with water, depending upon how long the boat was expected to be in the yard.

In the shipyard, the most likely culprit is welding or grinding without properly preparing the area by removing flammable materials and setting a fire watch. To my knowledge, there is no truly automatic fire supression on 688i. The US navy frowns upon it. The closest thing would be the supression system in the galley, which is still manually operated.

Electrical shorts due to new equipment/cables are possible as well.

I'd be interested to see the source of the fire as well. Those shore power cables can be a major problem if they arc.