A civilian sandblaster at Portsmouth Naval Shipyard set fire to a bag of rags aboard the nuclear attack submarine USS Miami on May 23, 2012, because he wanted to leave work early — and the blaze he started burned for roughly 10 hours, according to details reported by 19FortyFive. What began as a small act of workplace avoidance ended up destroying crew living quarters, the command-and-control spaces, and the torpedo room, and set off a chain of events that would ultimately sink the submarine's future entirely.
The USS Miami, a Los Angeles-class attack submarine designated SSN-755, had arrived at Portsmouth Naval Shipyard on March 1, 2012, for a routine 20-month engineered overhaul, according to 19FortyFive. The fire broke out that evening and burned from around 5 pm until roughly 3 am the following morning. During the blaze, the submarine's S6G nuclear reactor — which had been shut down for over two months and was physically isolated early in the fire — remained safe and stable throughout the incident, according to Breaking Defense, which noted the reactor spaces sat in a separate rear compartment from the forward areas destroyed by flames.
Fighting the fire required a massive mutual-aid response: more than 100 firefighters from regional departments across Maine and New Hampshire joined Navy and civilian crews to battle the blaze, as reported by Claims Journal. Firefighters faced extreme heat and thick smoke while navigating the sub's narrow, difficult-to-access compartments. Around ten firefighters were injured battling the flames, and one crew member suffered broken ribs, though the incident caused no deaths and no life-threatening injuries.
From Vacuum Cleaner Theory to Arson Confession
Navy investigators initially attributed the fire to debris igniting inside an industrial vacuum cleaner in a June 2012 news release. A July 24 update reported Fury’s admission that he had set rags on fire inside a plastic bag aboard the submarine, according to the Center for Public Integrity. Fury reportedly wanted to go home early after exhausting his allotted time off and sick days.
Fury did not stop there — he set another, smaller fire three weeks later. He later claimed anxiety attacks had motivated him to start both fires and insisted he never intended to harm anyone, per details in the 19FortyFive report. At his March 15, 2013 sentencing in Portland federal court, U.S. District Judge George Z. Singal handed down a 205-month prison term, a compromise between prosecutors' request for nearly 20 years and defense requests for under 16 years, according to the Bangor Daily News. The judge weighed Fury's lack of prior criminal history against the extreme danger and destruction caused by setting two fires. Fury was also ordered to pay $400 million in restitution, an amount later reduced to $10 million, per 19FortyFive's reporting.
Fury did not accept the outcome quietly. “I don't believe I'm responsible,” he said, according to 19FortyFive's account, adding, “I don't believe I did it. I don't remember doing it.” He also claimed his mental condition and addiction to alcohol and medication were not properly considered at his initial trial. In May 2015, Fury appealed his federal sentence, claiming ineffective assistance of counsel and stating his confession was coerced while he was suffering from unaddressed mental health and substance abuse issues, according to NEWS CENTER Maine. A federal magistrate rejected his claims, leaving his roughly 17-year sentence intact.
Repair Costs Ballooned Before Sequestration Sank the Sub
The Navy initially estimated repair costs at $450 million and even requested an additional $220 million from Congress to fund the work, planning to return the Miami to service by 2015. Officials also floated using spare parts from the decommissioned USS Memphis, but abandoned that plan because the Memphis came from an earlier Los Angeles-class flight that didn't match. Maine's congressional delegation, including Senators Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe, advocated for the submarine's repair and restoration.
Those hopes collapsed when a detailed damage assessment found the initial estimate had understated the true scope of destruction, pushing the estimated repair cost from $450 million to $700 million. When that estimate grew, mandatory federal budget cuts under sequestration forced the Navy's hand: funding the expanded repairs would have required cancelling scheduled maintenance and construction on several other submarines and surface ships, according to CBS News. The Navy announced in August 2013 that the Miami would be decommissioned rather than repaired, abandoning plans for five additional deployments. The submarine was formally decommissioned on March 27, 2014, and later scrapped after estimated repair costs reached roughly $700 million.
A Storied Vessel Cut Short
The USS Miami wasn't just another hull in the fleet. Commissioned in 1990, the submarine became the first U.S. nuclear submarine to transit the Suez Canal in 1994, according to gCaptain. It participated in Operation Desert Fox in Iraq and Operation Allied Force during the Kosovo War, and took part in clandestine Cold War operations. It was also the first submarine since World War II to take part in combat operations in two separate theaters.
Lasting Changes to Navy Fire Safety
The fire's fallout extended well beyond one submarine and one arsonist. A May 2013 Navy command investigation released under the Freedom of Information Act concluded that while arson triggered the blaze, a systemic “cultural blindspot” regarding shipboard fire risks during overhauls, combined with delayed response times, severely worsened the damage, according to the Naval Reactors History Association. Navy leadership acknowledged that years of low fire incident rates during overhauls had bred complacency in the years before the 2012 fire.
In response, Naval Sea Systems Command issued a new fleet-wide fire safety manual in February 2014, mandating temporary automatic fire detection systems and annual full fire drills during submarine overhauls, according to Marine Link. The manual integrated lessons learned from the Miami fire to raise safety standards across both public and private shipyards.
