Boat Fire Yesterday??

[Duke 59]

Does anyone know about a boat that burnt yesterday at the end of the Avoca arm?  It was late afternoon yesterday.  I saw the smoke from our house, but was too far away to get much detail.  The boat was up against shore and they put the fire out with one of the fire and rescue boats.  

I don't know how it happened and hope no one was injured.  

They just now loaded the boat on a trailer and pulled it out.  With my binoculars I could see that it looks like a pretty large fiberglass speed boat with an inboard motor.  The entire interior of the hull was black and burnt.

Praying for no one hurt.

[jeb]

I saw that on the news last night. They said everyone swam to shore safely, and that the fire started in the engine. Not much more than that for details, though.

[Sore Thumbs]

Glad all are ok. Wonder if it filled up with fumes and they forgot to pump that out before starting? Those can be pretty big explosions sometimes. 

[fishinwrench]

Inboards and I/O's are pretty much a bomb looking for a reason to go off.   You can't just bury a high performance V/8 engine (or 3 of them), plus their fuel supply and batteries under upholstery, and pipe in only enough fresh air for the intake, and expect things to remain safe.   

[Sore Thumbs]

I like opening the whole back end myself. 

[Okie4Life]

http://5newsonline.com/2018/06/02/beaver-lake-boat-fire-everyone-safe/

 

I believe it was on the USACE Facebook page also.  Stated the fire began from fumes in the engine compartment,

[Sore Thumbs]

I figured that was the case

[bferg]

Gotta run the blowers-- and not for 20 seconds either....especially on hot humid still days.  When we had an inboard I would prop open the engire compartment a couple of inches with a life jacket whenever we stopped to swim or whatever. 

A lot of the newer boats will not even start until after the blowers run for 3 minutes.  

Kinda a crazy story:  When I was a kid we were at LOZ once and an old wooden hulled cabin cruiser caught fire right in front of us.  2 people jumped into the lake and one dude went down into the cabin to try to save "Toby".  Well, that guy ended up having to squeeze out of a very small port hole to get out of the boat because the fire burnt up that wooden boat faster than you can imagine.  We picked all of them up out of the water in our boat- they were all crying for "Toby."  I was scared to death thinking someone was stuck in that boat... Took us a couple of minutes to get them to calm down enough to tell us that Toby was a dog.  He didn't make it out of the fire which is sad, but not nearly as sad as what we thought had happened.  

It can happen quickly!

[fishinwrench]

Running the blower clears normal fumes that can cause a flash fire (the type that goes out on its own, or can easily be extinguished).    But when a boat becomes a raging fireball then there was a fuel leak, and when there's a fuel leak running the blower only feeds the cocktail. 

Water seperator filters (that everyone is convinced that they MUST HAVE) are the biggest source of raw fuel leaks in onboard and I/O boats.