[Bill]

elidefireus.com

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2005 XL Thompson Coach

Rarely tow anything behind us.

Sold: 1993 Liberty that we loved for 12 years.

[Archived]

David

Thanks for your response.

I see several products like your link, certainly a good addition.I’m actually a bit surprised of the low response, seems RV fires are a real deal.

Wireless temp sensors are something I’m learning now. They can be set to notify when it reaches a specific point. To me this would be a simple addition that might catch a fire prior to ignition. As anything – it sounds good but how well will it perform. I’ll purchase a few and post my findings.

[Bernard]

To keep my Merchant Marine license current, I have to participate in a fire fighting class every 5 years. Each time the instructor shows a video of a extension cord short that catches a curtain on fire, which intern sets the room on fire. The big take away is it only takes 3 minutes from the spark to the fire totally engulfing the room. The instructor always reinforces the fact that you basically have less than 3 minutes to get most fires under control.

Run don’t walk for the nearest fire extinguisher.

Chuck

[Dorel]

I don’t think temperature measurement of the air in the engine bay or a compartment is going to be a good indicator, in most cases, that a fire is likely to start soon. A short or a fuel leak isn’t going to heat up the ambient air before igniting.

How about something like this?

Optical smoke detectors | Fire Protection in Vehicles (firedect.de)

[Archived]

Good thoughts

This might end up with a combination of components.
I appreciate the links.

Gary

[Erik]

I’ve thought about this too.

I road race an older NASCAR Cup car and helped build an ARCA car that we raced. I’ve looked closely inside a dozen or more NASCAR cars over the years.

ARCA required a fire suppression system that had two fire bottles; one that was triggered by “heat” in the trunk where the fuel cell is and one that the driver could trigger sprayed fire-retardant stuff in the driver’s compartment and in the engine compartment.

From what I’ve come to understand these systems aren’t really intended to put the fire out. They might, but don’t count on it. They are intended to “suppress” the fire long enough for the driver to get out and away from the burning car or provide some time for the safety crew to get to the car with all their firefighting tools … like fancy fire extinguishers and lots of water.

A good friend is a retired fire chief who spent his career with two fire departments between Milwaukee and Chicago near and along I-94; lots of horrific vehicle accidents often with fire. He also had a second career as Chief of Safety & Rescue at Road America for ten or twelve years and is a certified safety instructor for NASCAR, IndyCar, and IMSA. I told him we carry 200 gallons of fresh water and I wondered if I came upon a vehicle fire on the road if it made sense for me to try to “fight the fire” with a long hose and my 200 gallons of water. He said that a vehicle fire typically takes many, many hundreds of gallons of water to put out. He said it depends on what is fueling the fire (oil? gasoline? diesel? plastic? wood? tire? etc.) and what has gotten “hot”. He didn’t give me much encouragement beyond running to the vehicle with my fire extinguishers to (safely) make sure the people and animals were out and 911 was called.

I vaguely recall a PC member (Jon Wehrenberg?) mentioning that a fire suppression system in the engine compartment of the coach is of limited value because it’s so open and the suppression material will likely blow away quickly resulting in limited value in fighting an engine compartment fire. This makes sense to me. That might also apply to the area where the drive and tag axles are a tire fire might occue. Plus, by the time we’d get to the fire to invoke the fire system, it’s going to get pretty hot. An engine compartment fire suppression system might put out a small fire as it starts, but once it gets going … stand back.

I think that an enclosed generator compartment might be different situation. If a fire starts in there having a bottle going off automatically or by manual triggering, it might be possible to stop the fire or at least really slow it down. Has anyone put a remote thermometer in their engine compartment? How hot does it get in there?

I think it’s important to think about what triggers a fire and what feeds a fire. Chaffing wires and cables, chaffing oil/lube lines, leaking oil/lube lines, hot tires, seizing bearings, etc. We can hedge against these situations by looking for these problems and making sure these risk factors are reduced with good gaskets that aren’t leaking, tight fittings, tie wraps, fire sleeves on wiring and hoses, loom clamps, and all the do-dads that are used to support and hold together wiring, cables, and hoses.

I think remote thermometers with set warning temps have value. It will probably take a while to “learn” what the normal operating temperature is of the enclosed generator box or the engine compartment, etc. Get an abnormally high temperature, it might be time to investigate.

I’d be interested to know if any Prevost owners have added a fire suppression system to their coach.

PS: I had a fuel fire at the front of the engine of the Cup car the second year I ran the car. It occurred on-track at the Milwaukee Mile road course. I’d already worked a corner and knew each corner had “one” fire bottle and that might not be enough. Fortunately, I knew exactly where a MM safety truck was parked with two crew members and a dozen fire bottles; they got the job done, but what a mess! That was an awfully exciting experience I hope to never go through again.

[Erik]

I had an engine compartment fire and learned a whole lot.

First, I have no knowledge of how efficient a fire suppression system is, its coverage, or its value as a primary protection against a fire. I do know if you are driving down the road you are unlikely to realize you are on fire. I had no clue other than a flickering image on the back up camera something was going on, until a trucker told me specifically we had an engine area fire.

Without going into detail the fire was fueled by burning A/C system refrigerant ignited as it blew past the A/C compressor seal which spread up the rear tail light housing, curled across the top of the engine bay, burning battery cables and batteries.

We saved the coach by throwing water from the water holding tank on flames and areas red hot as a result of flames burning on them, like the A/C compressor clutch. Multiple large sized extinguishers failed to sufficiently reduce temperatures and escaping refrigerant was ignited by the red hot clutch which we managed to cool sufficiently using an abundance of water from the water tank drain. The electrical system was sufficiently damaged to prevent the operation of any device that needed electric.

There is no right or single way to protect the coach. When the fire department arrived everything was extinguished and the fireman had the balls to lecture me about the use of water on an engine compartment fire. He had no clue had that abundance of water had not been used the cherry red metal parts would have continued to be the ignition source for refrigerant, fuel, oil or whatever.

[Marshall]

I had a FireTrace fire extinguishing system installed over the engine on our bus. Hopefully never need to use it.

https://youtu.be/kXt8A4jGprI