Several sailors were treated for minor injuries and returned to duty after a fire broke out Wednesday aboard amphibious transport docking ship New Orleans off the coast of Okinawa, Japan, the Navy said.
It is unclear what injuries were treated. Earlier, the Navy had said two sailors had been treated for injuries.
On Friday, the U.S. Seventh Fleet said the ship had returned to White Beach Naval Facility under its own propulsion. U.S. Navy crews, along with the Japan Coast Guard and military, had put out the fire in the early hours of Thursday morning, Japan Standard Time.
They had been working to extinguish the blaze for about 11 hours, since 5 p.m. JST on Wednesday.
The New Orleans was anchored near White Beach Naval Facility during the time of the blaze. The crew of the amphibious transport docking ship San Diego, moored at the facility, helped with the firefighting efforts.
A defense official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to provide details about the ship, said the fire appeared to be contained to the middle decks near the ship’s bow. The official added that multiple decks had been affected, without specifying how many decks were burned.
The Seventh Fleet said Friday about 380 service members were working and residing on the ship, whose sleeping area and kitchen remained open. A Marine Corps official told Military Times earlier this week that no Marines were aboard the ship when the fire broke out.
The cause of the blaze is under investigation, the Seventh Fleet said.
The fire could further hinder the availability of amphibious warships at a time when the Navy is already struggling with readiness issues within the fleet. The readiness rate of amphibious ships critical to Marine missions has dropped to 41%, a defense official told Military Times earlier this week.
The lack of available amphibious warfare ships, known as amphibs, resulted in a more than five-month gap in Marine Expeditionary Unit deployments this year. The 31st MEU completed its last patrol aboard the America Amphibious Ready Group in early March. The 22nd MEU deployed aboard the Iwo Jima Amphibious Ready Group on Thursday, but returned to port in Norfolk days later to avoid Hurricane Erin.
An investigation by the Government Accountability Office in 2024 found that half of the U.S. Navy’s 32 amphibious warfare ships were in poor material condition.
The Marine Corps has said it needs the amphib readiness rate at 80% or higher to complete its missions with the current number of ships in the fleet, and Marine Corps commandant Gen. Eric Smith has called the amphib readiness rate a “crisis.”
“I have the Marines, and I have the squadrons, and I have the battalions and the batteries … I just don’t have the amphibs,” Smith told Voice of America late last year.
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