USS Miami (SSN-755) - May 2012 Fire

May 2012 Fire

At 5:41 p.m. EDT on 23 May 2012, fire crews were called with a report of a fire on the USS Miami while being overhauled at Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in Kittery, Maine. At the time the submarine was on a scheduled 20-month maintenance cycle, indicating the submarine was undergoing an extensive overhaul called "The Engineered Overhaul". Injuries to seven firefighters have been reported by national media. One crewmember suffered broken ribs when he fell down an open hatch during the fire. It took firefighters more than 12 hours to extinguish the fire.

Originally the Navy reported that the fire started when an industrial vacuum cleaner, used "to clean worksites on the sub after shipyard workers’ shifts," sucked up a heat source that ignited debris inside the vacuum. On July 23, 2012 a civilian employee Casey J. Fury, was charged and confessed to starting the fire in order to "get out of work early". Fury admitted to setting the May 23 fire, having ignited some rags on the top bunk of a bunk room.

The Navy Department debated on whether to scrap the ship. Both US Senators from Maine—where the shipyard is located—advocated repairing it. The United States Navy asked congress to add $220 million to the operations and maintenance budget for emergent and unfunded ship repairs which will be used to help repair the Miami. The final outcome was a choice to repair the submarine at an estimated total cost of $450 million, the USS Miami is expected to return to service sometime in 2015.

To keep costs down, spare parts from the recently decommissioned USS Memphis will be used to repair the Miami. Furthermore, integrity checks on the hull didn’t show changes to its metallurgy or strength. Fixing the internal sections will be much cheaper than replacing hull sections. At first glance it seems more prudent to repair USS Miami in the same manner as USS San Francisco since such a repair would cost "only" (around) 80 million USD. However, it should be noted that the hull of USS Memphis is already 36 years old (as of 2012). The Memphis is also a different class of 688 submarine, as it was not built with the vertical launch system that the newer Miami has, thus making the Memphis' hull incompatible with that of the Miami.