Any data on Frig/freezer fires?

Almot wrote:

path1 wrote:
I'm going to upgrade all elect in coming months and considering putting in halogen fire extinguishers system for frig/freezer. http://www.firefightproducts.com/Fire_Fight_Supplemental_Hal.html But I'm wondering if some type of temp readout (readable from cab and bunk area)might be better.

Half the time when your fridge is running you are not even there. A lot of good will fire exitinguishers will do then :)

see "automatic-release fire extinguisher" in above link. :)

And even though I have the fail-safe installed, there are still both upper and lower halon extinguishers behind the fridge.

path1 wrote:
So, I'm thinking it would be worth while to keep an eye on temps around boiler plate and coils.

I'm pretty sure every new model built in the past several years, Norcold, Dometic and Atwood- has a thermal cutoff on the boiler- most are simple thermal switches but the Norcold 1200 recall uses a thermocouple. I really cannot explain why they need a fast acting thermocouple, but I know they feel it was necessary or they wouldn't spend the money on the recall.

Chris Bryant wrote:
There are 2 distinct reasons for these to catch fire- basically one is a sudden release of refrigerant *while running on LP*. This is fairly rare, as the largest component of the refrigerant is water, but it can and has caused fires. The more common failure is simple overheating, which will ignite surrounding flammable materials.
There are other reasons they will burn- electrical problems, critters nesting around the burner, etc.

Thank you Chris Bryant. In reading this

The more common failure is simple overheating, which will ignite surrounding flammable materials.

So, I'm thinking it would be worth while to keep an eye on temps around boiler plate and coils.

Chris Bryant wrote:
There are 2 distinct reasons for these to catch fire- basically one is a sudden release of refrigerant *while running on LP*. This is fairly rare, as the largest component of the refrigerant is water, but it can and has caused fires. The more common failure is simple overheating, which will ignite surrounding flammable materials.
There are other reasons they will burn- electrical problems, critters nesting around the burner, etc.

Thank you Chris....a voice of reason

Fires happen from ALL sorts of reasons. Problem in an RV is the materials RV's are made of.....POOF!

There are 2 distinct reasons for these to catch fire- basically one is a sudden release of refrigerant *while running on LP*. This is fairly rare, as the largest component of the refrigerant is water, but it can and has caused fires. The more common failure is simple overheating, which will ignite surrounding flammable materials.
There are other reasons they will burn- electrical problems, critters nesting around the burner, etc.

path1 wrote:
I'm going to upgrade all elect in coming months and considering putting in halogen fire extinguishers system for frig/freezer. http://www.firefightproducts.com/Fire_Fight_Supplemental_Hal.html But I'm wondering if some type of temp readout (readable from cab and bunk area)might be better.

Half the time when your fridge is running you are not even there. A lot of good will fire exitinguishers will do then :)

I don't know the specifics of what caused ours but in our case the heat shield did its job. The charring was mostly near the bottom but some higher up as well. If the heat shield had not been there I imagine the whole coach would have gone up. One of those shiver up the spine moments when we pulled the nocold out.

If you are going to upgrade to an all electric coach as you imply, just get a compressor or household fridge. I bet you don't have a fire suppression system at home.

If my memory is correct from reading on this forum the 120 volt heating element that makes the refrigerator work on 120v, was a few watts larger than normal, and caused the boiler tube to crack and leak the flammable coolant.