Troy Bruemmer News

USNS Apache (T-ATF 172) responded to a shipboard fire aboard a commercial freighter while repairing the port of Monrovia, Liberia’s, damaged commercial pier and surveying the city’s harbor, Aug. 10. The engine room of Tahoma Reefer, an Estonian commercial freighter also paying a call on Monrovia’s port, burst into flames in the early hours of the day. Later that morning, just as smoke from the burning vessel was spotted from Apache’s bridge, the U.S. Embassy in Liberia phoned the ship and asked the crew to respond. Using the ship’s rigid hull inflatable (RHIB) boat, Apache Chief Mate Troy Bruemmer and Chief Warrant Officer 3 Pete Sharpe, officer-in-charge of the 12-member embarked Mobile Diving and Salvage Unit 2 and three other crew members, rushed to the scene.