Thursday, 4:30 PM
Fire hits Navy ship in Boston dry dock
(George Rizer/Globe Staff)
Two firefighters took a break in the dawn light
By Globe Staff
Firefighters battled through smoke and heat to quench a blaze early this morning in the bowels of a Navy ship in dry dock on South Boston's waterfront.
The fire in the steering gear room of the Sisler, a cargo ship, was reported just before 3 a.m., said fire department spokesman Steve MacDonald.
Two firefighters and two civilians were taken to the hospital with minor injuries, said EMS Deputy Superintendent John Doyle. The fire caused an estimated $750,000 in damage.
Firefighters wearing air tanks dragged 600 feet of hose to reach the fire, which was in the ship's stern, MacDonald said. He likened their job to fighting a fire on the third floor of a windowless 15-story building.
It took about a 30 minutes to find the fire and another half-hour to knock it down, he said. About 60 firefighters battled the blaze.
The cause of the fire is undetermined.
A Navy website describes the Sisler as a 950-foot-long contractor-operated ship with a crew of 30 civilians and five military personnel. The ship had been in dry dock since mid-June, MacDonald said.
Leonard Olson, vice president of operations for Boston Ship Repair Inc., which was working on the ship, said the fire was discovered by one of the civilian crew who remain on the ship even though it’s in dry dock. He said a general repair job on the ship had been almost completed.
