Kayteg1 wrote:
devildog1971 wrote:
I had a class B that caught on fire, it had a 20 gallon propane tank and full of gas the gas tank and propane tank vented off lost the r v but no explosion
Bare in mind, even the title of this topic is misleading, we are talking about propane CYLINDERS here, as only those can be used with TC.
Lot of members can't catch the difference, but propane tanks do have safety valve.
Propane cylinders do not.
Yes they do have pressure relief valves, all of them. The little "valve" on the tank part of 1 lb bottles is the relief and the valve assembly on BBQ type bottles also has one.
What makes you think they don't, aside from being the eternal antagonist?
We're talking 2 differnet things here. The "safety valve" as you refer to it, relieves pressure when the internal pressure gets too high, which can pretty much only happen if the bottle is heated in a raging fire to the point it's boiling propane in the bottle.
This will make a huge fire, and it's not limited to BBQ bottles.
The other failure is a sudden puncture to the tank, from a bullet or maybe a car accident like the current discussion. This is no different than a built in propane tank.
Of course it's more exposed on the back of a vehicle. That is what is in question here. But, like the pics of the smashed trailer, anything can happen. The question is, what is the likelihood?
Is it safer to have the bottles contained in a plastic compartment with some little metal straps in the back corner of the camper (like ours, idk where other campers store them and don't care). If we got rear ended by a Mack truck while sitting still, the risk would be virtually the same as if it was mounted on the back of the camper, as it's not like a protective skeleton is built around the propane compartment.
from this member. 
