The Navy says that all known fires aboard the USS Bonhomme Richard have been extinguished, four days after the start of a searing fire that has cast doubt on whether the amphibious assault ship can remain in service.
“It is four days and, looking at the clock now, three hours to finally say that we have extinguished all known fires aboard the USS Bonhomme Richard,” Rear Admiral Philip Sobeck, commander of Expeditionary Strike Group 3., told reporters on Thursday afternoon.
“Our fire teams are investigating each space to verify the absence of fire,” Sobeck said in a statement. “Until every space is verified and there are no active fires, we will not be able to start any official investigation.”
The admiral said the source of the fire remains unknown, as does the extent of damage inside the ship.
“We do not know the extent of the damage. It is too early to make predictions or promises of what the future of the ship will be,” Sobeck said. “We cannot draw any conclusions until the investigation is complete.”
During the night, hundreds of Navy and federal fighters were temporarily evacuated from the ship after it was determined that the ship was listing too much. The addition of water to put out fires inside the boat has created an extra weight that made the list of boats 5 degrees.
With the fires extinguished, the Navy plans to pump the remaining water on the ship, Navy officials said.
Earlier in the week, the fire that had broken out on the flight deck toppled one of the ship’s two masts that hold its radar and communications equipment.
The photos that have appeared on social media show that the huge bay of the ship’s hangar has been destroyed and burned like a fire that sometimes reached 1,200 degrees throughout the ship’s interior. Those temperatures have dropped to just 125 degrees, according to Sobeck, who said it will be possible to save the ship.
“It is there, it has survived, it is proven to have survived, and it is in stable condition throughout the process,” Sobeck said at a press conference Thursday afternoon.
But he made it clear to distinguish between possibly being saved and definitely being saved.
“The ship can be repaired,” said Sobeck. “It will be determined whether or not it will be repaired.”
Defense officials told ABC News that a Navy damage assessment team will help inform decisions about the ship’s future. An official told ABC News that after the evaluation is complete, “there will be some difficult decisions to be made” about whether the ship can remain operational.
While there has been damage to most of the ship, major engineering areas remained intact, a factor that could affect decisions about the ship’s viability.
Navy helicopters carried out more than 1,500 launches of water buckets and tugs sprayed water on the side of the ship to cool its hull while fires broke out below deck.
Sixty-three staff members, including 40 sailors and 23 civilians, were treated for minor injuries, such as heat exhaustion and smoke inhalation. None of them remains hospitalized.
Most of the 1,000 Bonhomme Richard crew were off the ship as it underwent maintenance when it caught fire and suffered two explosions. About two-thirds of the maintenance was done at that point, and some of the staff and equipment had been transferred back to the ship.
One hundred and sixty crew members were on board and were evacuated at the time. They and their shipmates are now “at one of our bases in charge,” said Capt. Mark Nieswiadomy, commander of the San Diego Naval Base.
Sobeck said the sailors had recently received training for ship fires, and shared several anecdotes of heroism from the effort to save Bonhomme Richard; “brave stories of sailors,” he called them.
One involved Second Class Damage Controller Jeffrey Garvin, a Navy fire chief who was on the scene at the first reports of black smoke from the ship.
Sobeck said the man was on board during the first explosion and was sent to the hospital for evaluation. After being cleared, he returned to the ship in time for the second explosion.
“He ran to the fire,” said Sobeck. “Since then, he’s been to all sites every day, to include two explosions. He had to go to the hospital for treatment, the concussion protocols, he was fit to work, he came back. And when the secondary explosion occurred, basically The same thing happened again. He went through concussion protocols, he came back. ”
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