Three-Alarm Fire Leads To Evacuation Of San Diego’s Historic USS Midway
SAN DIEGO, July 15 (UPI) — Volunteers and workers were evacuated early Wednesday from the USS Midway, a permanently docked historic aircraft carrier, when welding construction work sparked a fire.
The smoky blaze was reported about 5:30 a.m. two levels below deck on the decommissioned ship, but locked doors made it difficult for firefighters to access the fire, said Lee Swanson, a spokesman for the San Diego Fire-Rescue Department. That, coupled with hidden spaces and compartments, made knocking down the fire even more difficult. No one was injured in the three-alarm blaze.
About a dozen construction workers were doing some renovation work when the fire was sparked on the bow, authorities said.
“Because they had been doing some welding, falloff from that had lit a small fire,” Swanson said around 7:30 a.m. “They put water on it and it cooled off quickly. They are still working to get down there to get eyes on it.”
The Midway, turned into a museum in 2004, was the longest serving carrier in U.S. naval history. It draws some one million visitors annually.
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