The remains of a Cold War-era Russian submarine once seen in a movie starring Harrison Ford caught fire in Providence on Tuesday morning as workers were using a blowtorch to cut it up for scrap, fire officials said.
The fire at a waterfront scrap yard sent a plume of black smoke over the city at about 9:30 a.m. but was quickly extinguished. No one was hurt.
The hull is sheathed in a 3- to 4-inch (8- 10-centimeter) layer of rubber and that's what caught fire as workers cut into it with a torch, Providence Deputy Assistant Fire Chief Steve Capracotta said.
After the Cold War, the submarine known as Juliett 484 was sold and used as a restaurant and vodka bar in Helsinki Finland and as a set for the 2002 Ford movie “K-19: The Widowmaker.”
The sub wound up in Providence because the Rhode Island-based USS Saratoga Museum Foundation bought it and opened it to the public as a floating museum in 2002.
It sank during a nor’easter in 2007 and was sold for scrap.
State environmental officials have been informed of the fire, Capracotta said.
