Fire in our RV! - by David Hathaway

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I know, I know ... you don’t have to worry too much about an RV fire because it’s highly unlikely that it could ever happen to you, right? Well our “unlikely” event started on the warm afternoon of August 11th, just after we pulled into a truck brake check area halfway between Westbank and Merritt so that our tiny dog, Lucky, could have the pit stop he had been desperately telling us about. On the final day of a wonderful 6 week, 6500 km holiday, absolutely nothing seemed to be out of the ordinary as we idled our well maintained 24' 1979 class C motorhome to a stop at the far end of the area so that we wouldn’t block any trucks. Lucky’s need seemed to be so urgent that Joanne, my wife, turned around to see if Michael, our 15 year old son, had Lucky all ready to go outside. As she turned, she spotted a small bulge in the floor covering directly in front of the mid-coach door. She and Michael watched in utter amazement as it quickly swelled before their eyes, emitting a tiny swirl of white vapor from the top of the dome. Lucky went ballistic! Sensing some sort of danger, Joanne yelled for us all to get out. She and I jumped from the front doors of the cab, still hoping that all we had was a minor problem. Michael, who was sitting at the kitchenette right beside the door, was almost as fast to react. With Lucky in his arms and grabbing a fire extinguisher as he went, he leapt over the bump )now well over 1' high) and out of the side door. As he landed, he turned to look and was astonished to see that the floor which he had just jumped over was now totally gone and that gray smoke was starting to billow down the entire length of our motorhome! I took the fire extinguisher and was in the process of emptying it under the chassis when someone behind us screamed “Run - it’s going to blow!” and run we did - Donovan Bailey had nothing on us! About 50 yards away, we turned to see what was happening. To our utter dismay, flames seemed to be coming out of every window, and a huge pillar of smoke was already high into the sky. Within seconds, one, then the other of our fully loaded gas tanks exploded, blowing out the entire side of the motorhome and causing us to turn and run even more quickly for another 20 yards or so. Even though we could feel the heat on our backs, we stopped there while Michael helped a terrified RV’er get his beautiful class A motorhome (with car in tow) out of immediate danger. Shortly after, we heard a giant “whoosh” accompanied by a huge blue flame as our built-in propane tank started a spectacular series of ventings (luckily, it never did blow up). Then the roof collapsed and we could see that a truly raging fire was fast consuming our entire vehicle. The elapsed time? ... probably less than 3 minutes. Several trucks and numerous cars stopped to see if everyone got out OK, and if they could help, but it was too late. Twenty minutes later, when the first emergency vehicle showed up, our home for every single night of the previous 6 weeks was an unrecognizable hulk, still flaming, but now less than 3 feet tall. The cause? The destruction was so complete that ICBC and other insurance investigators were unable to determine even a hint of a cause. I really wish they had been able to find something because now I will never know if our fire was the result of a series of unfortunate incidents, if I did something wrong, or if a maintenance procedure was somehow missed or performed incorrectly (the motorhome was fully serviced and safety checked, with no cost spared, at a well known Ford truck dealership immediately before we left, and was oiled, lubed and safety checked again in Winnipeg before we started home). Our losses? Of course, our much loved motorhome (which hopefully will be at least partially replaced by ICBC). All of our clothes, personal possessions, medicines, Michael's birthday presents, six weeks of pictures, souvenirs, etc., our camera equipment, four years worth of accumulated RV accessories (some of which should be covered by our homeowners policy) and much more. But worst of all, we lost numerous irreplaceable reminders, pictures, and memories of our 15 year old daughter Melinda who so enjoyed "her" motorhome, but who tragically passed away less than a year earlier after a 2 1/2 year battle with a very rare form of cancer (her legacy web site can be found on the Net at www.monkey-boy.com/melinda). The lessons to be learned? If you don't have at least 3 easy exit doors from your motorhome, then you better have a very clear plan for how to get out if a fire suddenly erupts between your loved ones and that door...and make absolutely sure that everyone who rides with you on a regular basis knows and has practiced that plan, even if just in their minds. Even if you do have three doors, what about getting someone out from the back or from the bathroom (will your 5 year old sleeping on the rear bed be able to pop an escape hatch in time?). If Joanne or Michael had been in that predicament, they almost certainly wouldn't have been able to get out, and there would have been little I could do to help them - it was that fast. If you do have to pull over with a suspected or real fire, make sure that you don't stop against a guard rail or a cement abutment that will prevent one or more of your exit doors from opening (we didn't, but someone in Ontario did just a few weeks before resulting in the loss of 2 young lives). Don't count on a small fire extinguisher or a roof hatch to save you. They probably won't. Think seriously about installing smoke detectors at the front, middle and back of your rig. We didn't have any, and even if we did, they might not have saved our motorhome (we didn't smell any smoke before the fore), but you can be sure they will be in our next one. The positives: We're all still alive, and apart from some post-traumatic shock, are doing reasonably well. We met some very kind and caring people, especially Garvin and Tania Black of Victoria who drove us all the way to Abbotsford, even though our fire came close to toasting their rig as well. And, of course, our friends Leon and Anita LaHay of Langley who dropped what they were doing, picked us up in Abbotsford, calmed us down, fed us, and then drove us to our home in North Vancouver. Leon's parting words as he headed back to his own home around midnight? "Well at least you didn't have much baggage!" We are thankful that we have been given a chance to tell our story. If recounting our own misfortune saves even one family from suffering a sudden, or possibly even a tragic end to a carefree holiday, than it will have been well worth the effort that it took to write it. Drive safely.