Trailer Fire

That's terrible.
Hope ins. treats him OK.

wow, what a picture of the fire. I was a firefighter for 30 years and when I saw that picture I could smell the fire smell. guess it's true about taking the fire out of the horse etc.

old guy wrote:
wow, what a picture of the fire. I was a firefighter for 30 years and when I saw that picture I could smell the fire smell. guess it's true about taking the fire out of the horse etc.

Just wondering is a lithium fire like a alinumin fire ?

scary?

OMG - I know Randy & Nancy (camped many times with them)and was totally unaware of this terrible accident. If anybody can pull through this it's Randy....he's an incredibly smart guy....his HDT is awesome. I'm glad they are OK.

Mike

hone eagle wrote:

old guy wrote:
wow, what a picture of the fire. I was a firefighter for 30 years and when I saw that picture I could smell the fire smell. guess it's true about taking the fire out of the horse etc.

Just wondering is a lithium fire like a alinumin fire ?

scary?

Lithium batteries burn very intensely, like magnesium. A car fire in a Tesla or other EV can take 2000 gallons of water or more to extinguish. Nearly all of the car fires I have put out in my career are knocked down with 100 gallons or less.

rjstractor wrote:

hone eagle wrote:

old guy wrote:
wow, what a picture of the fire. I was a firefighter for 30 years and when I saw that picture I could smell the fire smell. guess it's true about taking the fire out of the horse etc.

Just wondering is a lithium fire like a alinumin fire ?

scary?

Lithium batteries burn very intensely, like magnesium. A car fire in a Tesla or other EV can take 2000 gallons of water or more to extinguish. Nearly all of the car fires I have put out in my career are knocked down with 100 gallons or less.

Well said!
Some early VWs (beetles & vans) and Porsche 914s had magnesium trans-axle center sections.
They were real "eye openers" when a supposedly simple engine fire refused go out! Usually the fire was extinguished (only) after the fuel (the magnesium center section) was gone.

While you applied copious amounts of water, the original cause (like a fuel leak) would continually re-ignite adding to the problem.

:W

So firefighter guys - what would you recommend as a 'best' fire extinguisher?
Is there even one?
get out and run.........

We had a fire last year when in Florida during the winter stay. The wiring on the water heater caught fire around 2:00 am. I woke to about a foot of dense smoke hanging down from the ceiling. My wife awoke at the same time. I yelled to her to get the dogs and herself out now! The smoke alarm then went off and I went down stair in or 5th wheel and could see the smoke boiling out from the panel under the tv. I new that was where the water heater was and assumed that the problem was there. She got outside with the dogs and I knew where a screwdriver was in the cabinet. Grabbed it and pried out the panel far enough to get my fingers behind it and tore it off. Just as I got it off a water line burned in to and put out the majority of the fire, I extinguished the rest. That was all the excitement I wanted. We were very lucky.

Man that fire was intense
RVs do burn fast, but i think the higher temperature of the lithium battery fire made the situation worse, raging inferno comes to mind

I looked at those Chevy volt batteries on line, lithium ion, not the newer liFePo,

I read thru Randy's description of what happen, and it sounds very plausible

There was something wrong somewhere

Just like those hoverboard fires, and the early laptop fires, and the E-pipe Vap fires

Battery degradation

After reading Randy's description of events, it makes me wonder if he had one of the Kidde extinguishers that's under recall and hadn't been replaced yet. He did say that it flat didn't work. If that's the case, it's a strong reminder to get those d@mn things swapped out!

Lyle