Fire Suppression

[Gadget Man]

I’m sure many of you have seen an RV burning on the side of the highway, it is indeed a terrible sight. It seems to be very common these days.

In hopes of preventing such a tragedy, I just installed a fire suppression system throughout my coach. This was done by adding automatic fire extinguishers in the engine, genset and outside refer compartments. I purchased the system directly from the manufacturer, "Fire Fight". Ralph, the company's owner, speaks "RV", is very helpful and is a pleasure to talk to. He is based out of Florida.

The entire system cost me less that $500 and was a breeze to install.

Craig

[Fred and Bonnie]

Thanks Craig, great information.

[yudamann]

Craig, you might now qualify for a reduced RV insurance premium. I installed such a system on my inboard engine for my boat and reduced my insurance.

[Ken Roberts]

My three unit system from Fire Fight arrived today. I got the ones installed in the generator and outside of the refrigerator done today. I'll tackle the DP engine one tomorrow. It is a lot larger and I am still looking at options for the install. I think I have it pretty much figured out so off to Lowes to pick up some heavy grade harware for bracketing. I knpw when we pull out again on June 14 and head East I will have a greater piece of mind and it is fine by me if none of the three units ever get used. While I was at it, I decided to put a 4th manuallly operated unit on the vertical post of our bike rack which is on the rear of the toad. No need to scramble for basement compartment keys and which compartment did I put it in. We tow 4 down and I am thinkiing of putting a 5th unit, again manually operated, on one of the tow bar arms. Overkill you say, not really the #4 and #5 units are not only for my protection ; but, will be more readily available should I need them to assist another motorist. The Fire Fight units are soley for the protection of our rig. Have a good day and be safe out there, Ken.....

[Mike Canter]

Ken is there a warning horn or light that goes off that the driver can see if the engine catches on fire and the fire bottle goes off while driving?

[Ken Roberts]

Mike, the answer is not exactly. What I mean is there is no such alert device that came with the units themselves. Howevrer, there was a flyer in the shipping box stating that one might be available. I intend to follow up with Fire Fight as this would be an excellent accessory to have. I will post my findings, Ken................

[Gadget Man]

I spoke to Ralph from Fire Fight about this a few months ago. He currently offers a hard wired alarm unit, which IMHO would be time intensive to install (Ralph agrees). He is currently working on a wireless system, which I will be very intersted in, once it's available.

BTW, it's probably over-kill, but I added a 4th extinguisher. I placed an SS45 Halon in the electrical compartment.

Craig

[offshore]

Great information, I am waiting for info. from Fire Fight.

[bigskymt]

Thanks Craig P. for the great advice. I too e-mailed for info and received a quick reply from Jim B.
I'll be installing the refer extinguisher first.
Having lost an RV to a refer fire several years ago this is one product I consider a necessity.

[Mike Canter]

The problem with having a fire supression system on a motor and no warning horn is that you can have a major fuel or oil leak that causes a fire then the fire system relases the agent but you don't know this has happened and you keep on driving and pumping out more fuel or oil. Pretty soon the fire is going to re-ignite and your fire system is empty..

[Gadget Man]

Originally Posted by Mike Canter

The problem with having a fire supression system on a motor and no warning horn is that you can have a major fuel or oil leak that causes a fire then the fire system relases the agent but you don't know this has happened and you keep on driving and pumping out more fuel or oil. Pretty soon the fire is going to re-ignite and your fire system is empty..

This could happen....I figure some protection is better than zero. My system's main purpose is protection of life, as I would hope that it would provide me with some extra time to vacate the coach in case of a fire. If it snuffs out a fire and saves the coach then it would definitely be an added benefit. As I stated in my OP, the engine isn't my only concern, hence the reason for the additional extinguishers.

Keep in mind folks, I started this short thread over two years ago, so technology has probably changed some, along with the cost.

Craig

[Mike Canter]

Yes I agree that any fire system is better than none. If no fire system then it is important to have a hand held fire bottle that has the correct agent for oil and fuel fires. A CO2 bottle is not going to do much good in the engine compartment and I much prefer foam over powder. We use a foam system on the engines in our race cars because of oil and fuel fires.

The biggest cause of a fire on these diesels motors is a turbo failure. They break and start leaking oil. It is always a good idea to use a flashlight and check around and under the turbo on a regular basis and always look for oil spots on the ground under the motor.

What is nice about some newer diesels is that they don't have a high pressure fuel pump anymore so you have no high pressure fuel lines that can leak. I know on my motor each fuel injector is also the high pressure pump and the top part of the injector is the pump that is compressed by the camshaft and then electronically fired. This was a great safety improvement.

[Robi.1014]

On the Fire Fight web page, there is a "At this time we are not able to process any orders." Any idea what's going on with this product line?

Also, I like the idea of the "self" or "auto" deploy of the fire extinguisher. I did some google-ing but didn't find any alternatives to price-point that Fire Fight seems to have. Thoughts?

[ron55]

how many of you have actually seen as motorhome on fire? I have been on the road for 10 years and I have not. a good way to sell something I think