Carrying Aux propane tank

havasu wrote:
I seriously doubt that the picture of the fire destroyed house was caused by a propane tank 'exploding' and if it vented in the bed of a pickup truck it would not have been able to build up enough propane density to explode.

Sorry man, you are wrong. While I was not present at the time, the eye witness who did, were able to explain what happen very accuratly. Tank(s) located in the back of truck was venting into the air, witness all said they hear a hissing sound, which is what we think my father heard as well, which drew him to the parked truck.

havasu wrote:
If the propane tank exploded in the back of that truck it was, IMO, as a result of the fire, not the cause of it.

Sorry again. There was no fire prior. Thoughtout the entire process, no one ever figured out why the gas ignited. Vehicle had been parked for over 1 hour. Only theory that ever seemed to make sense, was static electricity from when my father grabed the handle on the tailgate to lower the tailgate down to check on the hissing tank.

havasu wrote:
Propane is used in a lot of cars as a fuel source and those cars get involved in accidents, sometimes the gasoline catches fire and causes the propane tank to vent - it does so with a blue flame from the vent port, safely and with no drama.

You are 100% correct. Propane is used all the time with little to no drama. However, and this is a big however, all the vehicles, forklifts, etc. are degned with tanks, valves, etc. for those applications. Unfortunately, the BBQ propane tanks are the lowest/weakest tanks designed. They are designed to be used on a BBQ, not be bouncing around, stored horizontally, put in an enclosed area, etc. If everyone had one of those forklift tanks, we would never have problems, those are virtually indestructible. That is just not the case for these little BBQ tanks.

The leasson here is to be very careful, propane is a very nasty gas, much worse than gasoline. A propane tank explosion killed my father, who was retiring in a couple months, leaving a wife, 4 children, and 13 grandchild behind. I am sure a lot of you can relate to this time in your own lives.

Do i still use propane, abosoulutly. I am now very, very careful when using propane, very careful about how I store and transport propane. Certainly not saying dont use propane, just to be very careful and very diligent when using it.

I hope that by talking about what happen to my family, that maybe others will not have to endure what our family did as a result of a propane accident.