Construction vessels float on Oura Bay at the site of a future U.S. Marine Corps airfield at Camp Schwab, Okinawa, Jan. 23, 2025. (Keishi Koja/Stars and Stripes)
A fire broke out Tuesday aboard a ship towing construction materials for a new Marine Corps airfield in northern Okinawa, but no injuries or environmental damage were reported, according to Japan’s coast guard and local media.
The blaze began around 6 a.m. about 10 miles east-southeast of Cape Henoko in Nago city, the coast guard said in a news release Tuesday. The vessel, Marumasa 1, was towing a barge loaded with sand when oil leaked from its engine room, sparking the fire.
The sand was intended for the airfield under construction at Camp Schwab, the Okinawa Times reported Wednesday.
A spokesman for the Okinawa Defense Bureau, an arm of Japan’s Ministry of Defense, declined to comment, stating that Marumasa 1 was not directly contracted by the bureau.
“We will proceed with construction carefully,” he said by phone Wednesday. Some Japanese government officials speak to the media only on condition of anonymity.
Crew members extinguished the fire, and the ship’s captain reported the incident to the coast guard at 6:08 a.m., according to the news release. However, the vessel was left unable to navigate on its own.
A tugboat began towing Marumasa 1 to Kin Bay at 10:05 a.m., accompanied by the coast guard vessel Awagumo. The vessel anchored in the bay at around 1:30 p.m.
The cause of the fire is under investigation, the coast guard said.
The incident follows two oil spills in January from vessels working on the airfield project.
The new airfield is being built on land reclaimed from Oura Bay to replace Marine Corps Air Station Futenma in densely populated Ginowan city. The U.S. and Japanese governments agreed to the move in 1996, but legal challenges by the Okinawa prefectural government delayed construction until recently.
The construction site is divided into two main sections: 279 acres on Schwab’s north side and 91 acres on the south, according to Okinawa Prefecture’s website.
Work on the northern section had been stalled since April 2020, when Okinawa Gov. Denny Tamaki refused to approve design changes meant to stabilize the seabed, citing safety and environmental concerns.
The Japan Supreme Court in January rejected an appeal in a lawsuit filed by Okinawa prefecture in September 2022 seeking to block changes to construction permits required by the Ministry of Defense to complete the project. The ruling marked the conclusion of a series of 14 lawsuits filed by both sides since 2015.
