This would be a good example of why you need a large crew besides normal operations. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_George_Washington_(CVN-73)#Transit_and_fi

This would be a good example of why you need a large crew besides normal operations. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_George_Washington_(CVN-73)#Transit_and_fire https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_George_Washington_(CVN-73)... The fire lasted 12 hours. You need more than one group of people to fight fires for that long. You can't realistically man hoses that long with a small crew not to mention everyone is at battle stations during something like that and putting out fires primarily relies on the people on duty that day since everyone can't just stop doing their jobs in scenarios where for example they're already in a combat mission.