RV Fire Suppression Product

[NIRVC Service]

Since [moderator edit ] thousands of RV fires happen each year, NIRVC offers and installs THIA by Proteng, a patent-pending, advanced fire suppression system. In the event of a fire, the THIA devices quickly and automatically disperse FM-200, an extinguishing agent that covers the heat source and can prevent, suppress and extinguish fires.

The THIA system by Proteng is customized to each RV and consists of multiple self-contained tubes that wind through specific areas of the RV that can be prone to fire.

For information on THIA by Proteng and NIRVC, visit nirvc.com.

[dbircky]

Tens of thousands EACH YEAR? ( OP edited to thousands )

More like 4,200 rv fires each year:

https://www.usfa.fema.gov/downloads/...t-rv-fires.pdf

There are about 11,200,000 RVs registered in the USA.
(https://www.gorving.com/newsroom/rv-...ing-statistics)
That puts the fire risk at .0375% or 1 in about every 2,666 RVs.

Not saying this product wouldn’t put out a fire (or more likely) slow it down enough to allow for escape. Just know the actual odds of a fire,[moderator edit]

Perhaps your vendor gave you that erroneous figure of “tens of thousands every year” which I understand - you trusted them to accurately represent their product. But if they mislead on that fact, how can they be trusted on any other claim they make?

[edge68474]

I be watching.

[NXR]

Originally Posted by edge68474

I be watching.

As a former firefighter I just don't understand these things. For a fire you need oxygen, heat, and fuel plus an ignition source, and the ignition source can be heat.

These RV extinguishers are a "one and done". It's almost guaranteed that the oxygen, heat, and fuel will still be present after a Proteng bursts. That will cause a rekindle. Fuel line leaking on a hot engine? Say goodbye. Overheated fridge that ignites the surrounding structure? Say goodbye.

Especially if there is any kind of air movement such as at the back of a fridge or around an engine that will disperse the extinguishing agent.

Even Proteng's videos are done in enclosed boxes. That ain't an RV, folks.

I've dumped 5 lb and 20 lb extinguishers on burning materials and had good suppression until the extinguisher was empty. I even dumped a 300 lb Purple K wheeled extinguisher on a jet fuel fire. That one actually worked, for a while.

But during training of liquid fires the only thing that worked was firefighting foam because it forms an airtight barrier, keeping oxygen away from the overheated liquid. There would be no flame for several minutes and then we'd take a stick and stir the foam up, causing a break in the foam. And poof, we'd have a flame again.

I dunno...

Ray

[johnhicks]

I don't understand how a gas supressant is going to work in an open compartment.

[NXR]

Originally Posted by johnhicks

I don't understand how a gas supressant is going to work in an open compartment.

It can, if it kills the fire when it's in what's called the incipient phase, which means it's not progressed to the point where the fire is self-sustaining. And only if what lit stuff off is no longer present. That's a lot of "if"s in an RV, especially when engine fires are supposed to be the #1 cause.

It Proteng also triggered an alarm that it just blew its contents I can see some value. But I cannot find anywhere that it does that. If the extinguisher goes off in a rear engine DP, who is going to know? Or even a front engine gasser.

Ray

[CLIFFTALL]

Several off topic posts have been removed. This thread is in the Vendor Spotlight Section. Please take other subjects to the regular Forum Sections.
Thanks

[Mike Davis]

Originally Posted by dbircky

Tens of thousands EACH YEAR?

More like 4,200 rv fires each year:

Thank you for pointing that out. Based on your FEMA link, we went and looked at Marketing's source material for the tens of thousands claim. While we believe the content writer was acting in good faith, we aren't able to follow their source back to a credible study or agency. As we never want to use deceptive numbers or marketing practices, I have requested for a moderator to edit the original post to read thousands instead of tens of thousands.

However, I think the tens of thousands vs thousands really makes little difference. As I've posted before, I am the Officer that made the original deal with Proteng. You can read how and why that came about here: https://www.irv2.com/forums/f103/pro...ml#post6142948

Working at NIRVC, I see burned-out RVs being towed to our lots for insurance repairs on a regular basis. We've even had them burn to the ground on our lot. So, even if it were one fire, but that fire included my family, I saw the risk as significant. Risk is about probability and magnitude of an event. I saw the probability of fire as low, although I believe the 0.0375% number cited above to be misleadingly low because:

• It only includes reported fires
• It is a point in time (ie a single year). You would have to multiply it out by years of use. You plan on motorhoming for 20 years? Multiply out the single year risk by 20 and now you're looking at a 75 in 1,000 chance.
• Many (dare I say most?) RVs sit idle most of the time. We have units in our storage building that haven't moved in 6 years. As most fires occur only during active use, heavy users will be at a much higher risk than people that have registered RVs that don't use them.
• Probability of fire while a motorhome ages goes up.

So, given the fact that I plan on RVing for well over 20 years and do multiple trips a year with my family and tend to buy used and hold long, I was very uncomfortable with my probability.

Then given that RVs are basically tinderboxes, I considered the magnitude of outcome would be catastrophic--especially when I have small children and hope to still be RVing when I'm carrying around small grandchildren. I can replace money and even the RV. I cannot replace my family members.

I'm short on time, so I'll briefly treat some of the additional comments above:

• Open compartment - this is what the system was designed for. It was originally designed to extinguish engine fires in an open engine compartment. We ran tests in an open compartment behind an RV fridge and Proteng successfully extinguished the fire. I'm currently out of the office, so it might take me some time to dig up the link to that video.
• Reignition - Proteng works by reducing the temperature below flashpoint, thereby extinguishing the fire. It is true that the fire can reignite if fuel and oxygen are present and whatever generated the heat originally can reacquire flashpoint temperatures. This is why the system is sold as a suppression system--the main point is to buy you time to get out.
• Alarming/notification - When the tube ruptures, it goes off like a gunshot. I was comfortable there was a 0% chance of my wife sleeping through a gunshot. She wakes me up to investigate much quieter things in the night.

All this is to say, that when considering Proteng, you have to weigh your risk tolerance (probability and magnitude) and how much the extra time is worth it to you. It will make sense to many like me. It will make less sense to others. In the end, NIRVC sells the product because I wanted it, it was hard to get at the time and I felt there were likely others like me that would want the peace of mind it provided.

[NXR]

Originally Posted by Mike Davis

All this is to say, that when considering Proteng, you have to weigh your risk tolerance (probability and magnitude) and how much the extra time is worth it to you. It will make sense to many like me. It will make less sense to others. In the end, NIRVC sells the product because I wanted it, it was hard to get at the time and I felt there were likely others like me that would want the peace of mind it provided.

Well put. Risk = probability times impact. Low probability-high impact events are not as "risky" as high probability-high impact events and a person's "risk appetite" is very individualistic. What might be completely acceptable to you may be completely unacceptable to me. Or the other way around.

There are approximately 27,000 fire departments in the USA but only 10% to 14% are full time, depending on how you count them, and full time means staffed with paid personnel around the clock. That not only affects the time to respond to an emergency, it affects the quality of the response and more importantly for this discussion, it affects the quality of the recordkeeping and reporting.

The National Fire Incident Reporting System, NFIRS, is completely voluntary. Some departments report everything and those are likely full time departments because they have the people to do that. But less than 15% of fire departments nationwide are full time. Others report nothing. HOW calls are reported can also be highly variable as well. Was it an "RV fire" or a "vehicle fire"?

That's why the NFPA and FEMA stats really should not be relied on to decide probability; they are guaranteed to be incomplete and potentially misleading but right now they're the best we have. Insurance company data would be more reliable.

I'd consider asking Proteng to add some kind of alarm mechanism. While the tube rupturing may awake you from a sleep, do you think the tube rupturing due to a rear engine fire while you're driving would cause you to think "Hey, we might be on fire!"? I'm not so sure it would but maybe. I'd probably just think the tire threw a rock off again.

Let's assume a Proteng system leaked down due to a defect. How does the owner know? If the Proteng system discharges while the owner is not around and extinguishes a fire and it stays extinguished, how does the owner know it happened? Do they think they're protected so they drive off but they're not?

There's not much worse than a protection system that has silently failed and people still think they're protected. Perhaps a loop system similar to what we used on jet engines could work here. One example: https://www.kidde-fenwal.com/Media/D...ets/DS_CFD.pdf

FWIW,

Ray

[Mike Davis]

Originally Posted by NXR

Perhaps a loop system similar to what we used on jet engines could work here. One example: https://www.kidde-fenwal.com/Media/D...ets/DS_CFD.pdf

You're definitely speaking my language. My background is in software engineering and we build systems to monitor all our systems. When I worked for one of the major search engines back in the day, we built systems to monitor everything that we called watchdogs. Then we built watchdog watchers. Reminds me of an old Dr. Seuss book . (https://seuss.fandom.com/wiki/Hawtch...er_Bee_Watcher).

My main concern was sleeping and any of us being incapacitated by CO or smoke and not able to exit in time. I was worried enough that we didn't camp in the RV until Proteng was installed. But I'm still in the towable stage of life. When my kids stop destroying everything and we upgrade to a diesel pusher, I'll still install Proteng in the engine compartment to give us more time while driving but for some reason that one freaks me out a little less. Maybe its due to a mistaken belief that I'll see the smoke or flames billowing with enough time to stop and exit.

When I get enough time, I will definitely investigate a continuous monitoring solution because it would give me even more peace of mind. I do believe, however, that the monitoring should be separate from the suppression. I love the brain-dead simple direct activation of Proteng that doesn't rely on fancy electronics (lol from the guy that has made his living in fancy electronics). But I'd love to be notified that Proteng has activated and/or that a fire has broken out somewhere. I just haven't had time to dedicate to the product search and selection yet. I'm guessing the market for the monitoring, however, given the cost of such a system will be even smaller than for the fire supression itself. However, I would buy such a system myself and as a company we believe in making RVing as safe as possible so it is entirely likely we would add continuous fire monitoring to our product offering at some point.

[Fridge Defend]

Originally Posted by Mike Davis

We believe in making RVing as safe as possible so it is entirely likely we would add continuous fire monitoring to our product offering at some point.

Well, you are speaking our business

Coming from an NFPA fire suppression engineering background, we have the knowledge, skill and abilities:

Fire prevention (wiring, fridge, power sources, maintenance) > warning (smoke, LP, CO Alarms) > suppression (manual + automatic extinguishers) = package deal What is life worth?

[edge68474]

Originally Posted by NXR

As a former firefighter I just don't understand these things. For a fire you need oxygen, heat, and fuel plus an ignition source, and the ignition source can be heat.

These RV extinguishers are a "one and done". It's almost guaranteed that the oxygen, heat, and fuel will still be present after a Proteng bursts. That will cause a rekindle. Fuel line leaking on a hot engine? Say goodbye. Overheated fridge that ignites the surrounding structure? Say goodbye.

Especially if there is any kind of air movement such as at the back of a fridge or around an engine that will disperse the extinguishing agent.

Even Proteng's videos are done in enclosed boxes. That ain't an RV, folks.

I've dumped 5 lb and 20 lb extinguishers on burning materials and had good suppression until the extinguisher was empty. I even dumped a 300 lb Purple K wheeled extinguisher on a jet fuel fire. That one actually worked, for a while.

But during training of liquid fires the only thing that worked was firefighting foam because it forms an airtight barrier, keeping oxygen away from the overheated liquid. There would be no flame for several minutes and then we'd take a stick and stir the foam up, causing a break in the foam. And poof, we'd have a flame again.

I dunno...

Ray

That's very interesting. Thank you Ray for that response.