The Big Magnesium Fire

 

 by David W Asche

 

It was May, 1972 and Hector was moored to her usual spot inside India Basin in Sasebo, Japan. Since I was a "newbie" as far as my life aboard Hector was concerned, I had to serve on "Mess Cook Duty" for the month of May. I was assigned to the Chief's mess and had to clean their berthing compartments, fetch their laundry down to the laundry, and back again, fix meals if needed (I was NOT a COOK) and generally keep the place clean.

Meanwhile, down in the foundry, a job order to cast some "anodes" was passed down to my Molder mates and these were to be cast from Magnesium, and each was to be about four feet long, eighteen inches wide and about six inches thick, and each would have a pair of steel brackets cast into each one to facilitate mounting the thing after it was made. The work order was for eight of these "anodes". Each casting needed about four-hundred pounds of metal.

MLCS Richard Denbow and ML1 Charlie Whiteside were in charge and they planned all the details for this pour. They built the mold flask and allowed for extra depth in the drag to allow for the event that if the Magnesium should catch fire and burn, it would have more material to burn through before all hell broke loose.

There was no sprue or gating system either. Only a large riser on one end of the casting and the metal would be poured straight into the mold from the furnace, the big 650 Inductotherm, and not with shank and crucible as usual.

The big day arrived. The mold had been made and positioned near the furnace to allow for pouring directly into the mold, extra sand had been put around the mold to take care of any slops and dribbles, and fire brick had been placed around the opening of the riser/pouring hole to also control any slops and spills. It looked good to me, but then I was just an MLFA at that time, so what the hell did I know?

I had asked permission from the Chief in charge of me in the mess to go down and watch the pour, and he was nice enough to let me do this thing, so away I went.

The melting of the metal was already under way when I arrived in the lower foundry. But Magnesium melts pretty fast and it wasn't to very long until enough metal was melted to fill the mold, and it was getting ready to pour the thing.

The big furnace was tilted up, and sure enough, Denbow's calculations were pretty damn good, the metal went right into the mold with minimal sloppage.

It seemed like everything was going OK except for this itty bitty spark that was glowing right at the edge of the riser...It was so bright it was hard on the eyes to look at it. Not very big, but it had this ominous feel about it.

The little sparkler began to get bigger. Someone tried to extinguish it, then tried to scrape it off....NO GO!!

The fire began to grow faster and bigger. Great volumes of thick, white smoke were coming off the fire. Within a minute, the entire top of the riser was afire and getting more violent with each passing second. As high as the overhead was in the lower foundry aboard Hector, it could no longer be seen and the level of the smoke was getting closer and closer to us standing down on the foundry deck.

The metal in the riser was now boiling and spewing smoke so fast the blowers could not get rid of it fast enough, and they were on high speed. More firebricks were placed around the opening of the riser to help contain the riotous metal within. One could not bear to look at the fire. It was just too blinding bright.

When the smoke reached the level of our heads, Denbow yelled, "Let's go!" and we all filed up the ladder to the lower machine shop. In the upper foundry, absolutely NOTHING could be seen except the thick white smoke.

Once in the lower machine shop, a head count was taken to be sure we all had gotten out. We had. The in port duty fire party was called away and they went down into the blinding white smoke armed with only OBA's and CO2 Fire Extinguishers. The air the fans drew was being sucked down the ladder well, and caused an eerie rolling vortex that disappeared downward into the white abyss.

After about ten minutes, it was determined that the fire party was losing the battle and more drastic action was deemed necessary.

The ship went to General Quarters right there at the mooring in Sasebo, Japan. The Navy base fire department showed up and made sure the docks and nearby buildings stayed safe from the hell burning out of control below decks on the ship.

MEANWHILE, as we were all doing our bit to tackle the problem...a drama we were NOT AWARE of was unfolding in the dive locker, over on the port side of the same level as the upper foundry. One which was causing untold suffering and mental anguish.

The divers were trapped inside. The fire was so violent and hot, and the smoke so thick and its location was such that it prevented the divers from crossing over to the starboard side and getting up the ladder to safety.

A diver named Darrel Inskeep tried to go out and see what was wrong. He couldn't get across, so he went back into the dive locker. They just looked at him funny as he was covered in thick white soot and looked like he had been in a blizzard. When he told the others what was going on outside their door, a first class petty officer who was not a diver, but just visiting began to freak out and was saying, "We're all gonna DIE!" It was a tense situation to be sure. MMI Schill, in charge of the divers, did a splendid job of keeping his head.

The word was passed to bring all of the CO2 fire extinguishers down to the foundry and they came from all compartments around the ship. Hundreds of them. Each one was passed down to others wearing OBA equipment and down into the blinding white smoke.

Alas, the fire crews could not do more than keep it from consuming the remainder of the ship. After about an hour, the metal had run out of energy and the fire died away of its own accord. The smoke was ejected by the fans and all could now be observed as far as damages were concerned.

It seems the construction of the mold was the best deterrent to the fire. Because of the extra care Denbow and Whiteside had put into the allowance for the fire resistance of the mold, it was fairly well contained. Other than the radiant heat and smoke, the fire didn't go any further.

But it didn't need to! The heat had been so intense, the gauges on the furnace panel were melted and burned. Lights were melted. The control ropes for the overhead crane were burned off clear up to the crane. The front of the furnace itself was very badly burned and scorched. The white soot was very thick and it was covering EVERY SURFACE.

In the upper foundry there were lockers in which were the clothing and personal effects of the foundry crew. Soot had gotten into all of it. There was about a half inch of soot on the deck alone.

It was a total MESS. My mess cook duty ended, and I began the chore of cleaning, which never ended, and even in 1975 when I left the ship, white soot from that fire could still be found. I had to return CO2 extinguishers to the CO2 locker on the 01 deck from the lower foundry. I had to reline the big 650 Inductotherm furnace. Cleaning and repainting was a chore for all of us.

The divers were all OK. But a new work order was put forth to install a scuttle from the dive locker up into the lower machine shop so they would have an escape route if this were to ever happen again.

It took months to get things halfway back to normal again. The work order was cancelled on the anodes and we never made a single one.

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