Pentagon awards $10 million fire clean-up contract for Bonhomme Richard

A company that was ordered to stop work at a Virginia shipyard following a fire aboard an East Coast Navy ship has been awarded a $10 million Pentagon contract to clean up a West Coast ship recently ravaged by fire.

The contract was assigned to the National Steel and Shipbuilding Company, known as NASSCO, according to an announcement Wednesday from the Defense Department.

The deal expands a previous award to NASSCO and calls for repairs aboard the amphibious assault ship USS Bonhomme Richard in California. The ship caught fire in San Diego on July 12, and burned for four days before firefighters and Navy crews extinguished the flames.

The expanded contract covers emergency firefighting support, dewatering, safety and initial clean-up effort, according to the Pentagon.

The Navy on July 17 issued a stop-work order to a Virginia NASSCO site after a fire watch team stopped flames from spreading through the USS Kearsarge, a sister ship of the Bonhomme Richard, officials said.

The Kearsarge was undergoing maintenance at the General Dynamics NASSCO shipyard in Norfolk when a welding spark landed on flammable material, a Navy official said. 

“On July 17, the Navy was informed of a fire aboard USS Kearsarge” while it was berthed at the NASSCO facility in Norfolk, Naval Sea Systems Command spokesman Rory O’Connor told Just the News. “The fire was quickly extinguished by the fire watch and resulted in minimal damage.”

In response to the incident, O’Connor said, the Navy stopped maintenance on all its ships at the Norfolk facility. The Navy issued the directive in order to ensure compliance with fire protocols, he said.

NASSCO operates major shipyards in California, Florida, Virginia, and Washington. 

Work on the Bonhomme Richard will be performed in San Diego, and is expected to be completed by November 2020, according to the Pentagon.