Thursday, May 22, 2014

Smoke and fire

Because we spent a full week at the south rim of the Grand Canyon last spring, we decided to continue on our journey to the Petrified Forest National park.  


As we drove east on I-40 we could see a cloud bank looming ahead.  At first we wondered if it was a natural cloud or smoke, but quickly realized it was from a fire to the south.

We stopped at the Flagstaff Camping World for some downloading to our new DISH receivers, and at that time got the information that what we were seeing was the smoke from a fire in the Sedona area. There were several people at the Camping World who had evacuated. Everyone was concerned. 
From Web: RV fire that may have caused Sedona blaze

Someone said they heard the fire had beens started by a propane fire in an RV.  I found this picture on one of the news sites.

Scary!





We have now decided that we will be getting the automatic fire extinguisher package installed in our refrigerator compartment when we get to Albritton's in Lousianna next month. We have heard about too many fires of this type to ignore this safety measure any longer. 

However, from looking at this picture it seems the fire went from front to back, and unless the rig had a front kitchen floor plan, which some do, it may have started in the propane tank bay and not at the back of the refrigerator.  

I just heard that arson is suspected as the cause of the fire. This does not change our decision about the fire extinguisher installation.

Do you turn your propane off at the tank when you travel? 

7 comments:

  1. That's a frightening picture.

    No, we do not travel with the propane on. Most of the time we travel it's hot, so we have the generator and a/c on, so the frig runs on that. If no generator, we just turn off the refrigerator and it does fine for our short driving days.

    We bought 2 of the automatic halon fire extinguishers a year or so ago. We bought them from

    http://www.rvcoolingunit.net/servlet/the-Halon-Fire-Fight1-Extinguishers*****/Categories

    We put one behind the refrigerator and one in the generator compartment. We should probably have another one in the engine compartment.

    I think they are important to have on board.

    Safe travels.

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  2. The only time my propane is off is at the gas pump.

    ReplyDelete
  3. We typically leave our propane on, but that is about to change. About an hour after we got home yesterday there was a terrible smell, which took us awhile to figure out it was propane. We immediately turned off the tanks. The trailer is finally mostly flushed out, although some odor remains - the rv service place said that the smell sticks to everything and is difficult to remove.

    We don't know where the leak is, perhaps at the regulator, and of course this time of year it is impossible to get into any service place. We may just take the tanks out and run everything electric for our next trip.

    Scary!

    ReplyDelete
  4. We didn't travel with the propane on either. Can't stress enough about fire extinguishers and fridges. Hope more people think about having systems installed or more extinguishers on board. We heard a seminar quite awhile back by "Mac the fire guy" . Just google it and he comes up. He had great equipment, supplies, and fire knowledge for RVers. If you ever get a chance to see him or hear one of his seminars, go! we had a smoldering electrical wire that I accidentally discovered by brushing up against a small outlet in the bedroom side bookshelf. No smell and it had started to make a burn mark in the paneling, it was getting so hot. You never know…wiring is BURIED into the RVs and hard to access. Safe travels!

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  5. The 2 fires are not related. The RV fire was along the HWY somewhere in Phx. This huge fire is in Oak Creek Canyon and has really grown and yes it human caused but I haven't heard it called arson. Sierra Vista had a few fires that are arson. Makes you wonder what makes people so darn ugly inside.

    Travel Safe

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  6. We travel with our propane off. In some states it's illegal to travel with the propane on. Good to research these things.

    Good blog.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Oh My! Fire is my worst fear! We being in a 22ft. trailer, well if a fire started I can only hope we would be at the door and not asleep! But, I do think..we should know how those stupid little emergency windows work!

    enjoy your travels

    Maura

    ReplyDelete

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