Another RV Fridge Fire

[Fridge Defend]

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I am posting this for the victims of the fire, they gave me permission:

"Please post, I'm still in a state of emotional turmoil, and did not want to deal with the social media stuff!"

The fire source was reported to be a Dometic 8-10 cubic foot refrigerator.
So much for Fire Containment Systems. Dometic introduced this in 2006, and still results in fires today.
Dometic has folks sign NDAs in order to settle.

Don’t take counsel of your fears or naysayers.

Colin L. Powell
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

On June 1st we left a campground in southern Ohio near Caldwell Ohio know as AEP recreation lands it's reclaimed strip mine area with lot of lakes really a remote area .we had stayed 2 weeks there then headed north to Cadiz Ohio to a campground know as horsemen's camp in Harrison county located north of Cadiz on state route 9 .we've camped there for many years it's in a remote area not a busy campground but at times it can be we were to only ones there wen we got there about noon ,picked a site backed in got level it was about 96 degrees that day so I took my time setting up made Shure refrigerator was getting cold

We decided to go into Cadiz to Wendy's then dollar general it was about five o'clock in the evening .we fed our dog kinkade before we left he's a Greyhound trained for my wife as a mobility service dog.

We returned around 6:30 pm when coming up the road to the campground there was smoke coming from the campground area in the valley I told my wife Susan there must be another camper that came after we left and they built a fire then as we drove I said something is wrong it appears to be from the area our trailer was parked.

My wife said no it's not but the trees make it hard to see until you cross a little creek and turn right there's a loop we were on site 8 we could see after crossing the creek only the frame of our 2015 prime time avenger 26bb.

It was completely burned we were in shock and couldn't believe what we saw no one else there or came to see what was burning we had to drive back out about 1/4 mile to get cell service to call fire dept to come and put out what was left of our home on wheels .

I retired from welding a year ago for the last 5 years we planned on traveling full time it took a lot of time and prep to get ready we spent last summer in the U.P of Michigan traveled to Arizona for the winter we had visited Joshua tree national Forrest ,death valley, Las Vegas, red rock canyon ,grand canyon , petrified Forrest and many other places.

Our rv was home on the road one year into this adventure lot of plans now are being cancelled due to something I never knew could happen so quickly, what if we were asleep when this happened or at times in Arizona I left Susan and kinkade at the camper while I went gold prospecting.

What if I came back to a burnt trailer frame then? The fear of this once I learned as to why what caused this I couldn't sleep for days it angers me that something you spend that much money for can fail and burn up we have so much technology today there is no excuse for poor quality workmanship.

We have learned a lot from this and I tell other rv owners our story and show them the pictures of our home and tell them to be careful in there travels. To be honest I would not have bought another rv after this one burnt but it was our home we will in the future buy a house someday until I find one we like we will continue on traveling the only way I'll feel safe is after I purchase the fridge defend get it installed or get rid of the prophane gas fridge.

There's a lot of people who don't even know this can happen I was one of them, I never heard of this sort of failure or the fire it can cause I wonder why that is we trust the manufacturer of appliances to test them and improve the safety devices and improve them so we can be safe , I have come to the conclusion it's about money and profit all they care about is numbers.

I lost so much in this fire it can't be replaced all the videos pictures of places I've been cameras computer tablet external drives to keep our memories of travel gone .I can't even find the words to describe how we feel. This was our third travel trailer we've owned.

[1972VWbus]

How certain are you it was related specifically to the fridge?

[Fridge Defend]

Originally Posted by 1972VWbus

How certain are you it was related specifically to the fridge?

Shall we just use NFPA RV fire statistics and insurance providers to answer this question:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Axo90hD-iGQ

[Fridge Defend]

BEFORE June 2, 2022



JUNE 2, 2022

Info:

Media Tek Camera Application, 3456 x 4608 @ 72 dpi
Date Taken 6/2/2022 9:33 AM

[Toby Dog]

Hopefully Kinkade went with the owners to town.

[Fridge Defend]

Originally Posted by Toby Dog

Hopefully Kinkade went with the owners to town.

Thanks for your concern, the answer is yes Kinkade went to town with them.

My Questions:

Q1) Would you leave your dog locked in an RV without fire prevention on your Dometic or Norcold absorption fridge?

Q2) Would you decide not to take fire prevention measures because someone on social media said something as foolish as:

"There are over a half-million new RVs built each year (adding to the total RV population), probably most with RV fridges, yet the stats suggest low thousands of fires. If those fire stats were broken down by build year I'd bet that most of those units were not built in the last decade."

I do not know about you, but someone that is poopooing a subject using logic like above I would be suspicious of.

One death, human or pet is one too many.
The loss of hopes and dreams, a life time of memories, is the destruction of a life style.
Thank god that Kinkade went to Wendy's to enjoy a burger rather than the alternative.

What would motivate others to deter folks from investing into safety ????????????

Safety is everyone's business, and folks that say otherwise should have their head examined

I am interested in what the critics have to say?

I have faced more abuse than I care for on Social Media, what would motivate this?

I can tell you what motivates me:

iRV2.com welcomes the free exchange of information from one member to another in regard to their RV ownership, lifestyle and travel experiences.

THIS INCLUDES SAFETY

[Jake21]

When our 02 American Eagle had the original Norcold. I actually did not sleep very well after hearing about the fires that were caused by the propane fridges. Go look at rv salvage yards and see how many RVs they have that have burned, originating from the fridge area. I did some research and found the ARP “fridge defend”. I installed it my self with Paul’s help. I truly slept better. When my cooling unit failed (due to age, not fire) in installed an Amish unit and transferred the ARP to it. The unit from JC works fantastic. I kept the temp on 4 and it made ice like crazy and the beer was always frosty. The ARP has always been a great safety device and I would not own an absorption fridge without it.

This is not paid advertisement. Just a testimonial from a very happy customer. IF you have a propane fridge, get the ARP/Fridge Defend.
Jake.

[96 Wideglide]

Originally Posted by Fridge Defend

Thanks for your concern, the answer is yes Kinkade went to town with them.

My Questions:

Q1) Would you leave your dog locked in an RV without fire prevention on your Dometic or Norcold absorption fridge?

If we have to leave our little girl behind, I shut down my Dometic fridge, and leave the door unlocked.
If we have become friendly with any of the neighbors, I will inform them before leaving that our pup is inside, door unlocked, in case they notice smoke or flames.

[Fridge Defend]

Originally Posted by 96 Wideglide

If we have to leave our little girl behind, I shut down my Dometic fridge, and leave the door unlocked.
If we have become friendly with any of the neighbors, I will inform them before leaving that our pup is inside, door unlocked, in case they notice smoke or flames.

I am a believer in fair play and logic, who would want to hurt anyone, even an animal?

My yellow lab Lu Lu, named after the mining district near Cook City, MT was my absolute best friend for 14 years. I was inconsolable when she passed away.

When I found out about two dogs that were killed by a reported RV fridge fire, I was sent to the web page where it was reported. I viewed the webpage and made comment to an engineer that owns the same make of RV.

The next time I went to the webpage, it was taken down!
This fire burned 3 RVs to the ground and someone does not have their pets anymore.

I still ask why, why is it that there is a solution, but all I seem to get is resistance and strange comments trying to unsuccessfully challenge the science?

[ChuckerF14]

We love to say that safety comes first. I think Ford's motto was "Safety is Job One." I always chuckle at those sort of slogans. If safety is all that matters then stay home in your bed! If you have a mission to perform, then there are risks involved and you will need to trade a little safety to get the job done.

That said, the military uses the concept of risk management. Risk management calls you to identify and minimize the risks taken to accomplish the task. It also requires you to weigh the risk against the value of the mission and make a final decision to go (when the mission outweighs the risk) or not go (when the risk outweighs the mission).

You weight the risk and reward by multiplying their impact (good or bad) by their probability of occurrence (bad things don't always happen and missions don't always succeed). Driving down the road carries the risk of a fatal collision. The probability of that fatal collision is very low. Therefore, the value of being able to eat tonight outweighs the risk of driving to the market. Driving around on the freeways of Los Angeles because you just want to get out of the house might not meet that threshold. The value of your mission is lower and the risk is greater. That is the core concept of Risk Management.

Applying this concept to RV refrigeration, driving down the road with a significant heat source in a box of combustibles carries some risk. However, we want to camp and we want to keep our food cold. The first step is to eliminate or minimize the risk. A heat pump type refrigeration system would greatly reduce that risk. The cost is fairly high to make that conversion and it might eliminate your ability to camp the way you wish to camp....but it is an option. The Fridge Defend is another option. The Fridge Defend system greatly reduces the risk, costs a fraction of what it would cost to replace an absorption refrigerator, and does not eliminate the option of longer stays away from electricity.

The only benefit to not installing a safety device on your unit is the money you save. I don't think the the cash you save will be much comfort parked alongside the highway waiting for someone to come extinguish your burning rig, or returning from Wendy's to find the pile of rubble in that photo...especially if your pet stayed home to watch the coach.

Everyone's resources and missions are different. Everyone is their own commanding officer. Every commanding officer has to weigh the risks and benefits before making that decision to go or not go. Simply turning your back on the risks and hoping that fate will not find you is no way to lead your team.

Just my two cents,

Chucker

[Fridge Defend]

Originally Posted by ChuckerF14

We love to say that safety comes first. I think Ford's motto was "Safety is Job One." I always chuckle at those sort of slogans. If safety is all that matters then stay home in your bed! If you have a mission to perform, then there are risks involved and you will need to trade a little safety to get the job done.

That said, the military uses the concept of risk management. Risk management calls you to identify and minimize the risks taken to accomplish the task. It also requires you to weigh the risk against the value of the mission and make a final decision to go (when the mission outweighs the risk) or not go (when the risk outweighs the mission).

You weight the risk and reward by multiplying their impact (good or bad) by their probability of occurrence (bad things don't always happen and missions don't always succeed). Driving down the road carries the risk of a fatal collision. The probability of that fatal collision is very low. Therefore, the value of being able to eat tonight outweighs the risk of driving to the market. Driving around on the freeways of Los Angeles because you just want to get out of the house might not meet that threshold. The value of your mission is lower and the risk is greater. That is the core concept of Risk Management.

Applying this concept to RV refrigeration, driving down the road with a significant heat source in a box of combustibles carries some risk. However, we want to camp and we want to keep our food cold. The first step is to eliminate or minimize the risk. A heat pump type refrigeration system would greatly reduce that risk. The cost is fairly high to make that conversion and it might eliminate your ability to camp the way you wish to camp....but it is an option. The Fridge Defend is another option. The Fridge Defend system greatly reduces the risk, costs a fraction of what it would cost to replace an absorption refrigerator, and does not eliminate the option of longer stays away from electricity.

The only benefit to not installing a safety device on your unit is the money you save. I don't think the the cash you save will be much comfort parked alongside the highway waiting for someone to come extinguish your burning rig, or returning from Wendy's to find the pile of rubble in that photo...especially if your pet stayed home to watch the coach.

Everyone's resources and missions are different. Everyone is their own commanding officer. Every commanding officer has to weigh the risks and benefits before making that decision to go or not go. Simply turning your back on the risks and hoping that fate will not find you is no way to lead your team.

Just my two cents,

Chucker

Chucker "Just my two cents"?

That is more like we were playing poker, and you just took all my centavos!

Of course, I would not have bet all my centavos if I could not risk them

We need team leaders, and I would have been glad to serve on your team!

[MN_Traveler]

First … iam saddened the OP is going through this.

Now … as an engineer i would say that fires dint just “happen” … there must be some mechanism that causes the fires in the cases where they occur (and that mechanism is not present in the cases where fires do not occur).

So … is that mechanism known, and is there something an owner can do (PM, cleaning, etc) to reduce/eliminate the risk?

[Solo_RV_Guy]

Ammonia absorption refrigeration is used on boats, ships, in ice plants, freezes the hockey floor at your local arena... and the place you hear about fires are in RVs, which makes me point the finger at the compromises of 'value engineering' by Dometic and Norcold.

Until they are successfully sued we will continue to see these as the #2 cause of RV fires.

My suggestion is to lobby the *insurance* industry, as they pay for the losses. The cost of claims is what brought that industry to establish Underwriters Labs and the NFPA, National Fire Protection Assn, who writes model life safety codes.

[TXiceman]

It is sad that the RV fridge manufacturers know about the potential dangers of these units, yet they do not find a way to properly design them or protect them. Fridge Defend does a job that Dometic and Norcold refuse to properly address.

As for larger units used in other industries, they are all subject to more rigid standards and specifications. With a fired boiler, even as small as these are, it needs proper safety protection devices.

Ken
Retired Professional Engineer
Refrigeration and Heat Transfer