Like many old warships, the afterlife of Juliet 484 has been quite extended and nowhere near as heady as those Cold War days when the Russian K-77 submarine tracked the USS Saratoga.
Another chapter in that afterlife unfolded Tuesday morning when the hull of Juliet caught fire as workers disassembled it with blowtorches in a scrapyard off Allens Avenue.
Black smoke could be seen billowing over Providence on Tuesday as crews worked to put out a fire that broke out at a scrapyard off Allens Avenue.
According to Michael Healey, a spokesperson for the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management, workers were using blow torches to dismantle an old Russian submarine when a spark ignited rubber coating.
The fire spread quickly and burned a section roughly 100 square feet in size, Healey said, adding that crews were able to extinguish the flames using just water, rather than firefighting foam.
About two dozen firefighters initially responded around 9:30 a.m. but most were sent back soon after arrival, according to Providence Deputy Fire Chief Steve Capracotta.
