Fire broke out aboard the USS George Washington aircraft carrier on Thursday morning injuring 24 sailors, the Navy informed.

The fire was detected at about 7:50 a.m. local time on May 22. Apparently, the fire broke out near the aft air conditioning and refrigeration space and auxiliary boiler room aboard the vessel. The fire then spread to several spaces along a cableway.

One sailor suffered first-degree burns, while the others experienced heat stress. All of them received treatment, the Navy announced in a news release according to which the crew was at general quarters, a high alert, for 12 hours.

The USS George Washington was heading towards its new homeport in Yokosuka, Japan as it was conducting a routine replenishment operation in the Pacific Ocean. Unfortunately, things didn’t go as smoothly as planned because the fire broke out.

The aircraft carrier is equipped with a nuclear propulsion plant, but fortunately the fire didn’t damage it. The carrier is continuing its sale with full propulsion capability to San Diego before relieving the Kitty Hawk in the Western Pacific as the forward deployed aircraft carrier in the Western Pacific this summer.

The crew aboard the ship, which is highly trained in firefighting especially for this kind of accidents, fought the fire and after a couple of hours managed to contain it and eventually extinguish it. An investigation into cause of the blaze is under way.

"There's only one word for the effort this team made to combat the fire and that is heroic. The effectiveness of the damage control effort also clearely demonstrated the quality of our training procedures and sytems." said the air carrier’s Commanding Officer Capt. Dave Dykhoff.

The vessel left Norfolk for the last time on April 7 for Yokosuka, Japan.

USS George Washington (CVN 73) is the sixth ship in the Nimitz class of nuclear-powered supercarriers, and the fourth United States Navy ship to be named after George Washington, first President of the United States.