By: Sam DeDonatis

Yes, I was there as a third class petty officer and what a dark day for my friends. Kami Seya was a beautiful station and everyone was very close and morale was excellent. Those days were different, that’s for sure. We were between the Eve-Day watch and I was one of those light sleepers. I remember hearing the alarm being sounded in the barracks on that bad morning and I looked out the window and saw a large fireball in the distance. I ran to the rest of the men who were sleeping and told them what I couldn’t believe I was seeing. We all mustered and ran to the site which was called the “tunnel.”

As we approached the fire scene large amounts of paper manual covers and entire manuals were coming out of the sky. The draft from the fire was putting the material into the atmosphere which was being carried by the wind. I remember being on the fire team holding the hose but the fire was just too big and there was too much heat. The lights had long since gone out and I knew some of the personnel had tried to get out the front exit. There were many other exits to be used just in case we had an accident such as this.

After hours of fighting the fire, after the cool-down process, we went through the rubble. Many of our shipmates were overcome with smoke as they tried to get out the front exit – just what we thought was the case. A large fence was around the guard shack for security and that had long since melted and was twisted from the heat trapping some of the men.

The following days were clean-up and searching of the area and more importantly, going through the swamps around Kami Seya looking for publications, manuals and papers released into the air from the huge draft of the fire. Yes, we did find all kinds of material for a few miles around the fire area. Noting the wind direction on the night of the fire lead us to these findings. We rebuilt the station, bringing in new equipment and went back on-line. But, it was never quite the same again.

Source: US NCVA Special Publication, Kamiseya 40th Anniversary Fire Memorial