Francesca Knowles wrote:
msmith1199 wrote:
From the article about the Class B fire posted above:
"Houma Fire Inspector Mike Millet said he was able to recreate how Binder explained the gas spill, and said it was possible. But Millet noted that’s a first for the department and he’s unsure if that’s how the fire started.“It is possible what he said happened,” he said. “It was a freak accident. Nobody in the Fire Department has seen that happen before.”
Tom Freeman, the gas station’s owner, said he doubts Binder’s account. The pumps are regularly serviced and customers have never reported a problem with the one Binder used."
I don't know make/model year of the Roadtrek in the story, but there have been a number of owner reports/complaints regarding difficulty of filling some Roadtrek gas tanks. There seems to be some kind of airlock that happens, causing nozzles to shut off, even to the point of making it almost impossible to fill the rig.
Here's one example.
I once had a similar problem with a diesel truck- I had to sorta hang the nozzle on the edge of the filltube and "feed" fuel at a certain rate or couldn't fill the truck at all. I got so could "set" the lever just right to keep fuel flowing. BUT...I found out the hard way that all those contortions would prevent the nozzle auto-shutoff from working. In my case I just had diesel spewing all over the ground while the nozzle stayed on the truck.
If the Roadtrek owner was doing something like that and the air lock occurred, I could see gas overflowing and fumes at least getting to the fridge flame. I'm skeptical that the nozzle fell out- though if it was barely in the port to begin with I guess it's possible.
All of that aside, it's worth noting that the Fire Chief only questioned the "faulty nozzle" part of the story. There doesn't seem to be any question that the ignition source was the fridge flame, which is really the point of this thread.
The reason I pointed it out is because this type of fire is an extremely rare occurrence. And the RV in question was a small class B and it sounds as if the fridge vent had to at least have been very close to the fuel fill. Most RV's are not like that. The chances of an RV explosion while filling gas from a pilot light are almost non-existent unless you shoot gas directly onto the pilot light. Now the chances of a fire simply starting in the fridge compartment are not rare, but those are not related to filling with fuel. I have never shut my refrigerator off when fueling and have yet to blow up my motorhome.
