Thread: Spinifex vehicle fires.

Hi, I believe the trick is not to stop with the hot exhaust (especially the catalytic converter) over the tussock.
A garden weed sprayer with a long wand would be better placed than an extinguisher for an under body fire.
It sure would be terribly inconvenient.
Cheers

Any vehicle with a catalytic converter is prone to starting fires in spinifex country. But there are other possible ways of starting a vehicle fire, and it is not certain, I assume that all these burnt out vehicles were the initiator of the fire that consumed them either. I flew over this country several times in the 1980s, and what showed up remarkably was the fires that had been started by lightning. Starting as a teardrop shape they sometimes extended for tens of kilometres downwind from the starting point.

It would have consumed any unattended vehicle in its path. (I immediately identified what these burnt streaks were - some years earlier, flying from here to Melbourne, I was forced to land at Corowa and wait for a line of thunderstorms to pass. Resuming the flight just after the storm, I saw the same pattern, some still burning, some extinguished by the rain, in stubble south of Corowa.

Pretty sure that last photos of the vehicle with the bonnet up is (was) a Pajero.
I understand the primary cause of fires is seeds getting caught by heat shields etc against hot exhaust components, which then ignite. Maybe a Prado's heat shielding is susceptible to catching grass seeds?

A powder fire extinguisher is next to useless for a spinifex fire. You need a garden wand style water sprayer and a length of wire with a hook on the end to drag out the seed material from its hiding places.

On my last landy camper build I purposely routed the exhaust as short as possible and outside of the chassis rails so I had easy access to inspect for seeds and tackle any hot spots.

The landy is (was) a series 3 stage 1, from the flat (defender style) door hinges and forward radiator panel.

Looks like you had a great trip. God's country out there!

Chris

Originally Posted by JDNSW

fires that had been started by lightning.

Driving from Canberra to Yass one afternoon, I noticed a bolt of lightning that was obviously quite close.

A few kilometres further on, there was a fire way out in the middle of a paddock. There was no-one within sight, so the fire was obviously started by that lightning.

I used to think that vehicles started fires by shooting sparks out the exhaust. I had two incidents that showed how wrong that assumption was.

Riding a motorbike through long dry grass, I found that the grass caught between the exhaust pipe and the brake pedal was charred and I assume would have eventually begun to smoulder if left there long enough.

One night driving around a paddock in my Haflinger, I spotted a tiny red dot in the rearview mirror. It was the head of a Scotch Thistle that had become caught between the sump guard and the exhaust and had smouldered enough to fall out.

I had heard stories that Haflingers had a bit of a reputation for starting fires and wondered if the reputation was deserved. If they were driven through dead Scotch Thistles, I can certainly believe that they started some fires.

Pat Callinan seems to reckon DPFs and the associated cleaning cycle are a key factor. 4X4s and DPF fire risks. What you need to know - Mr4x4

This article also advises hourly checks under the vehicle for spinifex...I was under the thing every 5 minutes until I had established that I did not have any areas that were accumulating spinifex that posed a significant risk. After that I was checking probably every half hour whilst we were in seriously overgrown country. The 130 was collecting the stuff on the RH gearbox mount, not much anywhere else under the vehicle. The lower part of the a/c condenser is still packed with the stuff though.
We carried a wire hook, a garden sprayer kept full plus a go-bag with stuff like PLB, blanket, phones, munchy bars etc ready to grab if things went wrong. Happily did not need this.

Back in the early 1980s, when 4wds were just becoming popular, I worked as a mechanic for a little while in a Toyota dealership. The LCs and Hiluxes back then had sheet-metal guards under the engine and gearbox. The serious 4wd'ers always got rid of these as they were a known fire hazard.

I remember talking to the owner of an older model G-Wagen and he said on his model the exhaust pipe was routed over the top of the fuel tank along a groove. No idea if it was a factory tank or after market long range tank. He said many of these particular models had got spinifex and other debris caught in there and were consumed by fire, including his, but he put it out in time.

Hot catalytic converters (or DPFs) can set fire to spinifex without picking any up on the vehicle, just by having it touching the standing spinifex - the stuff is inflammable! ANd it doesn't have to be spinifex. Several years ago, not far from here a police car pulled up an erring motorist. Because it was only a two lane road, both the motorist and the police car were pulled onto the grassed shoulder. While the policeman was talking to the driver, his offsider saw smoke coming from under the police car, and hopped out to investigate. Just in time, as the car burst into flames underneath, presumably as the fire burnt through a fuel line or similar. The police car was totally destroyed (3mo old BMW)

I spent two years working in the middle of the SImpson in 1965-6. We had one vehicle fire, despite operating a dozen or so vehicles in the spinifex, many for 8-10 hours a day. No spinifex fires - no cat converters then.

The one we had was a Toyota FJ40, and the cause was quite simply a combination of poor design and smoking. The vehicle had just refuelled, and as it pulled away fro the fuel point, the passenger lit up - and waved his match between his legs to extinguish it. Having failed to realise that there was a leak in the fuel filler hose into the under seat tank. Since, unlike Landrover, the tank was under the seat but actually inside the cab, the leakage resulted in a pool of petrol on the floor. Further, also unlike Landrover, the fuel feed pipe to the pump was not a suction line bet had a fitting at the bottom of the tank, so once the plastic fuel line burnt through, there was a full tank of fuel feeding the fire. The fire extinguisher obviously did little.

Originally Posted by POD

Just got back from a bit of an outback trip that included the Talawana Track and, further south, Lake Minigwal and Plumridge Lakes. Our Hema map shows 2 burnt-out vehicles on the Talawana, one a Landy (perhaps a 2a I think) and one noted as a 'Pajero' on the map; the map data is about 15 years old. There were in fact 5 completely burnt-out vehicles on the eastern half of the Talawana Track. Very very sobering out there in remote spinifex country to see the remains of someone's vehicle and camper trailer that have been completely destroyed by fire, one of them had the incinerated remains of a little hand-held fire extinguisher next to it. We were traveling solo but a tag-along group followed us and we chatted at Kunawarritji- a Prado driver in that group stated that ALL the wrecks other then the early Landy were in fact Prados! Had him very nervous. One was an FJ cruiser which apparently is a Prado with a different body. Must be some serious design flaw there, surely? 'Once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, three times is enemy action'. I take no interest in Asian vehicles so can't vouch for the identification of these but here are a few images from the Talawana Track:
Tala wreck 1.jpgtala series wreck.jpgtala wreck 2.jpgtala wreck FJ.jpgtala wreck 4.jpg
We came across this one on the very disused and overgrown track from Lake Minigwal to Plumridge Lakes. Anyone able to identify it?
Burnot out vehicle Plumridge Lakes track.jpgBurnt out vehicle Plumridge Lakes- rear.jpg

Photo 1 is a Prado.

Photo 2 is a Landrover, I defer to your identification.

Photo 3 - don't know. Edit: possibly a very old Jackaroo/Isuzu. Edit edit - possibly a Prado.

Photo 4 is an Fj40. Edit - I meant FJ Cruiser.

Photo 5 looks like a Landcruiser 300. Edit: notice how the panels are entirely gone, they're aluminium on the LC300 and basically melted away. This may be a very new car at the time that famously burnt a year or two ago and was widely reported at the time - the owners were alone, very inexperienced and very unprepared.

Photos 5 and 6 is a Pajero.