Fire damages Navy ship in drydock

A massive Navy supply ship undergoing repairs at a South Boston shipyard became a caldron of fire in the predawn darkness yesterday as firefighters battled searing temperatures and blinding smoke, trying to douse flames deep inside a vessel the size of three football fields.

The fire was discovered on board the USNS Sisler around 3 a.m. and required Boston firefighters to use extra oxygen tanks and a boom truck in their efforts to pour water into the ship on Drydock Avenue, officials said.

"There was heavy smoke pouring out of all sorts of vents" on the vessel when firefighters arrived, said Boston Fire Department spokesman Steve MacDonald. "Damage to the ship was pretty substantial."

The fire caused an estimated $750,000 in damage, and several people, including at least one firefighter, suffered minor injuries, officials said. MacDonald said that the cause of the blaze is undetermined and that officials from the Navy and the Fire Department are conducting an investigation.

Firefighters also had to assemble 600 feet of hose to reach the roaring blaze in the steering gear room, located on the third of 15 decks of the supply ship, MacDonald said.

He said the fire inside the ship with its metal walls drove temperatures to well over 100 degrees, forcing the department to cycle fresh firefighters into the battle.

"Its like fighting a fire in a high-rise with no windows," MacDonald said. ". . . We entered the middle of the building and then had to go down several floors with steep narrow stairways trying to find it."

He said it took about 30 minutes to find the fire and another half-hour to knock it down. About 60 firefighters battled the one-alarm blaze.

The Sisler is named for Army First Lieutenant George K. Sisler, who was killed in Vietnam in 1967 as he tried to save fellow soldiers. He was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor.

The ship is 950 feet long and is owned by the Navy but crewed by civilians from the Maersk Line, according to that company and Tim Boulay, spokesman for the Military Sealift Command.

The vessel was undergoing routine maintenance in the Boston Ship Repair Inc. drydock and has been there since June.

Leonard Olson, vice president of operations for the shipyard, said the fire was discovered by one of the civilian crew who remain on the ship when the vessel is in drydock. He said repairs on the ship had almost been completed.

The Sisler is essentially a floating warehouse which, when operational, is loaded with Army equipment and is designed to give the Army fast access to its units around the world. Officials said the vessel had transported military equipment from the Middle East last year.