EMD_Driver
Senior Member
We were awakened around 3:45 Sunday morning, by my mom screaming. I honestly thought she had fallen and broken something badly. I ran downstairs and she was pointing towards the front of our camper. There was a bright orange glow and I thought one of our neighbor's camper was on fire. I opened our door and saw that it was our TV on fire. I came back in, grabbed my phone and went back out. While talking to the dispatcher, I grabbed the hose, that I keep hooked to our neighboring site's spigot and started attacking the fire. The cans of brake cleaner, slide lube, wd40 and what not were exploding. The noise woke several of our neighbors up and they brought their fire extinguishers.
Between the extinguishers and the hose, we managed to get the fire out before the first fire engine arrived. It turned out, that the fire originated underneath the toolbox, in the bed of the truck. I had twin electric air compressors and an air tank mounted under the toolbox. The only thing I can think of, is that one of the many feral cats around here climbed under the toolbox and possibly chewed one of the wires. It was much cooler than usual that night and that was a cozy little area that they have been in before. As of right now, I'm still waiting on the insurance company to inspect the damage and either give me an estimate, or total it.
Thankfully, nobody was hurt! The fire did change our plans to hitch up the camper and head to New Orleans next week. I guess it wasn't meant to be! I took several pictures and will let them speak for themselves...
What's left of our leveling blocks...
The remains of our generator... It was full of fuel and the fuel vapor pressure pushed the cap gasket out of the way, so the gas could boil-off. Thankfully, it did boil-off and didn't explode!
The remains of Kitty's toolbox. Aluminum melts at 1,650*F and there's not much left of the box itself.
The truck was parked in front of the camper and the only damage to the camper, is some greasy soot splatter. However, with the tremendous amount of heat that was generated, I'm not willing to trust the hitch anymore. I'm including the hitch in the insurance claim. Most of the time, I don't keep the truck packed with the generator and camping gear. I did this time, because of hurricane season. We had to evacuate for hurricane Matthew and I wanted to wait until I was sure nothing else was coming.
God kept us safe and we are very thankful for that!
Between the extinguishers and the hose, we managed to get the fire out before the first fire engine arrived. It turned out, that the fire originated underneath the toolbox, in the bed of the truck. I had twin electric air compressors and an air tank mounted under the toolbox. The only thing I can think of, is that one of the many feral cats around here climbed under the toolbox and possibly chewed one of the wires. It was much cooler than usual that night and that was a cozy little area that they have been in before. As of right now, I'm still waiting on the insurance company to inspect the damage and either give me an estimate, or total it.
Thankfully, nobody was hurt! The fire did change our plans to hitch up the camper and head to New Orleans next week. I guess it wasn't meant to be! I took several pictures and will let them speak for themselves...
What's left of our leveling blocks...
The remains of our generator... It was full of fuel and the fuel vapor pressure pushed the cap gasket out of the way, so the gas could boil-off. Thankfully, it did boil-off and didn't explode!
The remains of Kitty's toolbox. Aluminum melts at 1,650*F and there's not much left of the box itself.
The truck was parked in front of the camper and the only damage to the camper, is some greasy soot splatter. However, with the tremendous amount of heat that was generated, I'm not willing to trust the hitch anymore. I'm including the hitch in the insurance claim. Most of the time, I don't keep the truck packed with the generator and camping gear. I did this time, because of hurricane season. We had to evacuate for hurricane Matthew and I wanted to wait until I was sure nothing else was coming.
God kept us safe and we are very thankful for that!
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