July 12 (UPI) — At least 21 people were injured after a three-alarm fire broke out following an explosion on the USS Bonhomme Richard, the Navy said on Sunday.
A fire was called at 8:30 a.m. as the ship was docked at a Naval base in San Diego and 17 of the 160 sailors onboard as well as four civilians sustained non-life-threatening injuries and were transferred to hospitals for treatment, Naval Surface Forces reported on Twitter.
“USS Bonhomme Richard is going through a maintenance availability and has a crew size of approximately 1,000,” they said.
The San Diego Fire Department wrote on Twitter that is combatting the blaze alongside Federal Fire and that multiple sailors were being treated for “a variety of injuries.”
The cause of the blast and the location of the fire on the ship were not immediately clear.
USS Bonhomme Richard is a Wasp-class amphibious assault ship that was commissioned in 1998.The name is derived from the pen name of Benjamin Franklin.
The ship appeared in two films, Battleship and Act of Valor.
All inport ships were directed to provide fire parties to possibly assist with the effort to combat the blaze and the USS Fitzgerald and USS Russell were shifted further away from the fire.
