A blaze on USS Gerald R Ford took more than 30 hours to put out, with dozens of service members suffering smoke inhalation, the New York.
A fire that broke out aboard the US aircraft carrier Gerald R Ford while it was operating in the Middle East as part of the ongoing US-Israeli war with Iran has left more than 600 service members without beds, according to a report on Monday by the New York Times.
The blaze broke out in the laundry room of the carrier last week, and military officials said it took crew members more than 30 hours to extinguish it.
Dozens of service members were reported to have suffered smoke inhalation and two were treated for “non-life threatening” injuries.
The crew members who lost their beds are now said to be bunking on floors and tables, and since the fire originated in the main laundry area, sailors have no access to wash their clothes.
The carrier, along with its 4,500 sailors and fighter pilots, was ordered from the Mediterranean to the Caribbean on October 24 last year by Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth. It was part of a broader US military buildup intended to increase pressure on Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro before his capture in early January.
The vessel subsequently departed for the Middle East for the US-Israeli war against Iran, which is now in its third week.
Altogether, the crew is entering its 10th month of deployment, and if the carrier remains at sea by mid-April, it will break the record for the longest post-Vietnam War carrier deployment.
Being that the crew said they have been told that their deployment will likely extend into May, they will likely surpass the record 294 days at sea set by the crew of the USS Abraham Lincoln in 2020.
US Central Command said in a statement that the fire caused “no damage to the ship’s propulsion plant, and the aircraft carrier remains fully operational,” but crew members have reported that the plumbing system of 650 toilets on board frequently breaks down.
“Ships get tired too, and they get beat up over the course of long deployments,” Rear Adm John F Kirby, a retired naval officer and Pentagon press secretary in the Biden administration, told the Times. “You can’t run a ship that long and that hard and expect her and her crew to perform at peak capacity.”
Despite the latest setback from the fire, the carrier is conducting flight operations around the clock, according to Navy officials.
