Officials at a Maine shipyard are preparing to ventilate a nuclear submarine so that people can get inside to assess damage from a fire.
Defense analyst Loren Thompson says he'll be surprised if the USS Miami, which is based in Groton, is returned to service.
Firefighters responded to the USS Miami SSN 755 at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard on an island in Kittery, a town near Portsmouth, New Hampshire that popular with tourists on Wednesday night and worked through the night to extinguish the blaze.
Seven firefighters and crew members were hurt, but not badly. The cause of the fire is not yet known.
Rear Adm. Richard Breckenridge, commander of Submarine Group Two, said firefighters isolated the flames so they would not spread to nuclear propulsion spaces. There was nuclear fuel on board the sub, but the reactor has been shut down for two months and was unaffected.
Shipyard public affairs specialist Gary Hildreth said the fire started in the forward compartment of the sub. The cause hasn't been identified.
The USS Miami arrived at the shipyard for maintenance and upgrade work in March. Its home station is Groton, where the U.S. Navy has a base.
Authorities said they are waiting for the sub to cool enough for fresh air to be safely introduced without risk of another fire.
