Have you ever been through a maintenance and overhaul on a ship? Not only are there lots of systems being overhauled and updated (meaning some may not be available when needed, such as firefighting equipment), but there are lots of materials that can catch fire and burn that may be lying around where they normally wouldn't. And, if they aren't taken care of properly (again, ship was undergoing overhaul, and some things may have fallen through the cracks as sometimes happens during an overhaul), it can result in things getting out of control quickly. Factor in that the fire was deliberately started by a crewmember, who probably knew where a fire could be started with the largest chance of damage, and that is a sure fire way to have a disaster happen. Yeah, the chain of command was confused, and yeah, the ship was damaged to the point where repairing it would have cost too much, but hate to tell you, accidents happen. Not making excuses for it, as it was a bad enough situation that the Navy decided to look into procedures and change some of them, but sometimes shit happens. I know that everytime I went through overhaul on the various ships I served on, it was a dangerous time because of short crew (some were on temporary duty getting training), as well as things not being where they normally would, and people having to stand extra watches. Shipyard periods are extremely taxing and stressful, even more so than being on deployment. As far as other ships being in danger? Again.............shit happens. I remember that a ship moored to the pier next to us had a mainspace fire, and not only were their crew called out to fight it, but so was the fire parties from our ship, as there is a very limited time to get the fire under control and out before the whole ship goes up (around 30 min.) That was an interesting day, as it was the only time during my career where I saw GQ being called while we were pierside. If we hadn't got their ship's fire out, ours would have been next. Especially because of the diesel pipelines going down the pier.