Fire safety device worth looking into...

I know that the topic of carrying a fire extinguisher has been covered here several times, but what I didn’t know is that dry suppression canisters can be purchased with heat sensitive sprinkler heads and installed in your engine bay, and lower temperature models can protect your RV living quarters, toy hauler etc., they work all the time whether you are there to pull the pin and squeeze or not. The price may seem a little high compared side by side with a manual extinguisher, but cheap compared to loosing your truck (especially a restoration). One of my FB friends lost his nearly finished Bricknose crew cab restoration and I can’t help but wonder if this would have prevented it or allowed him to get the upper hand on it:

http://www.firefightmarine.com/ffproducts/

Thanks, Jonathan!

Interesting.  I didn't know those existed.  But I didn't see any prices, so where do you look for them?

Also, someone said something about powder-based fire extinguishers packing down under vibrations.  I wonder how these prevent that?

Well, the choice is foam or gas Gary so I don't think caked powder is an issue.

We used to have a full-on Halon system it the satellite uplink server rooms.
If you heard that alarm you either got out NOW, or you were extinguished along with the fire.

Shame your friend lost his truck to a fire.
Hopefully no one was hurt.

The whole cab looks involved.
Any word on the cause?

I missed that, Jim.  Thanks for the clarification.

That's a great idea. I don't like fires. Thank you for for sharing Ford F834  

Gary, if you click the hamburger stack and look under products > Large format automatic systems you will see the models for engine compartments. They range from $400 to $695 for the largest canister with two sprinkler heads on remote braided lines. The small format ones are for the refrigerators with the recall issue. Like I said, they are not inexpensive, but worth looking at if you have a lot invested in your truck. They could prevent a tragedy.

The guy who lost his crew cab never found the cause of his fire. I do know that it wasn’t a typical engine fire. It was a 6.9 IDI and the engine escaped more or less undamaged. The fire happened in the dash or firewall area. He said he had (and used) a fire extinguisher as well as Gatorade and water from his cooler. Since it was so far along with the restoration I assume it was not debris in the HVAC, but the guy was really upset and I didn’t ask too many questions. I just want to learn vicariously. His cab was destroyed and he has not (yet) rebuilt.

Edit: Jim, fortunately no one was physically hurt, only heart broken.

Not much to catch fire except the wiring up under the dash. :shrug

Bricks don't get the same amount of nesting in the ductwork because of the polka dot cowl , and we don't have ammeters with all the current shunted through.
I'm not certain of all the differences when a diesel harness is installed

Just a little back story on this link.... Stu (Don Claustro-2 on this forum) sent it to me. He used to work fire and rescue and is a great resource for all things fire safety. I had a scary close call in our “laundry camper” and he said these are great for RV owners, sheds or shop buildings etc., (look at the ones with lower temperature sprinkled heads than the ones for engine bays).

I was doing some work on our temporary living space and vibrations from the washing machine spin cycle rearranged some things in the camper. A moving blanket ended up on top of a halogen work light that was on. As it just so happened I was washing dishes, and went outside to give some chicken scraps to our dogs. They didn’t come when I called, so I walked around the corner to put the scraps in their feeder. I saw smoke pouring from the windows and open door. Had I gone out there just a minute or so later this would be a very different kind of post. We would have lost everything. Due to the locations of the septic drop and the power supply panels we have everything clustered. We have multiple propane tanks connected with rubber hoses. I know that BLEVE’s are rare, but each tank with an open valve and hose would have become a fire spreading blow torch at the very least. The only thing we could have done is RUN...



Lessons learned. I’m getting rid of all of my halogen work lights. They have no switch, and I didn’t unplug it because I was multi tasking and coming and going. I want a cooler, safer light that I can easily switch off when I walk away. I am looking at options to place things a little better, connect propane with steel lines, and add two egress doors. I’ve talked to the grandkids extensively about fire, but we need to work on evacuation drills. I am thinking about ordering some of these automatic extinguishers for our campers, and possibly adding a quick and dirty PEX line sprinkler system in the mobile. I will definitely be engineering a sprinkler system in our new house. There are LOTS of house fires out here in Golden Valley, and I don’t think I’ve seen one yet that wasn’t a total loss... and worse yet people have lost their lives. Stu told me after working fire and rescue that you really don’t want to have to live with yourself if someone gets hurt and you didn’t do everything possible to prevent fire and have a good evacuation plan. He also said sprinklers are extremely helpful. They turn most situations into a non-event. Anyway, rant over... but it wouldn’t hurt us to think outside of our trucks to our homes and loved ones, and our work shops with flammable chemicals, batteries etc.,

Jim, the IDI wiring is really minimal, probably the simplest of any Bricknose truck. The glow plug system does draw a lot, but I’ve never heard of it starting a fire and it’s not in the dash. I do wonder about the turbo down pipe and the plastic heater box since the one in my F-Superduty is melted through, but Mark had been using this truck for some time with no issues before this happened. It would have had to be a fresh exhaust leak (and a bad one) to do something like that. I really just don’t know...

Jonathan - Wow!  Glad you caught it when you did!  

And I sure understand your desire to put systems in the to-be house as well as where you are living now.  It would be just absolutely devastating to lose a home, but so very much more to lose a loved one.

As for the pricing, thanks.  I'd missed that.

There's a good reason the electric code doesn't allow incandescent fixtures in closets anymore!
Honestly, with how far LED has come in the past decade there's no reason any of us should be wasting 10x the energy so we can see.

I'm not so sure about residential sprinklers until people change materials.
I've seen too many I-joist/OSB/blown fill houses completely demolished because sprinklers for a contained fire saturated the structure and turned it to pulp.

I'm not going to get into a political or philosophical rant.