USS Zumwalt steams through San Diego Bay, Calif., in this undated photo. Three sailors were injured in a fire aboard the ship this week while at a naval shipyard in Pascagoula, Miss. (Zachary Bell/U.S. Navy)
Three sailors were injured this week in a fire aboard a destroyer in Mississippi, according to a news report.
One sailor was taken to a local hospital for treatment with unspecified injuries. The other two sailors received first aid on the scene, USNI News reported Wednesday, citing a Naval Surface Force spokesperson.
All three are in stable condition, the Navy said in a statement to USNI News.
The fire broke out aboard USS Zumwalt at 9:45 p.m. Sunday when the destroyer was pierside at a naval shipyard in Pascagoula. It was extinguished by the crew, USNI News reported.
Zumwalt is the lead ship of a class of technologically advanced destroyers designed to evade detection, among other capabilities, and was once billed as the future of Navy lethality.
It arrived at the shipyard in August 2023 for upgrades that included four additional missile silos. The service originally hoped to have the destroyer ready to deploy last year. It’s unclear how close the work was to completion.
The improvements would enable the stealth destroyer to fire hypersonic missiles, which travel more than five times the speed of sound.
The service had envisioned a fleet of 32 of the vessels, but that number dwindled to just three as the class was canceled in 2008 amid ballooning costs and concerns that the destroyers lacked crucial self-defense capabilities.
The other Zumwalt class ships are USS Michael Monsoor and USS Lyndon B. Johnson. Final per-unit cost for the ships was estimated at $8 billion.
It’s unclear where the fire originated. The Navy is investigating the cause and extent of damage, according to the statement.
The Zumwalt blaze is the latest in a recent spate of them on Navy vessels.
Last week, three sailors were injured in a small fire aboard the aircraft carrier USS Dwight D. Eisenhower as the ship was undergoing maintenance in Norfolk, Va.
In March, three sailors were injured in a blaze aboard the aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford while the ship was in the Red Sea.
That fire started in the ship’s main laundry areas and spread to nearby berthing compartments, displacing some 600 sailors.
Both of those fires also are being investigated.
