Anbody ever have a scare involving fire and their truck?

I was driving in the mud in one of our fields in my Bronco, along with my younger brother in his Bronco, this past sunday. I thought I was driving in a dryer section of the field and decided to stop for a minute. Turns out it wasn't dry like I thought and I ended up just sinking without even realizing it. When I went to start driving again I wasn't going anywhere. I tried to go back and forth, but got nowhere. Then something started burning cause some smoke was starting to come out of the bottom of the truck. I jump out and see that my tires are each sitting in their own little sunken hole. I then get down in the mud and see the dry grass underneath the truck starting to flame up. Holy crap!!! At this point my brother pulls up on the higher/dry side and tells me that he could see the flames too. So now i'm stuck and have the grass underneath on fire. Luckily, I had two bottles of water in the truck and was able to put the flames out. Eventually, after some digging and well placed branches I was able get myself unstuck.

There some pics of me being stuck in my gallery, but my digital camera was full, so i couldn't take any pics of the grass that caught on fire. Once I got unstuck you could see where my exhaust caught the grass on fire.

Luckily, there was no damage done to Bronco from the flames.
I gotta make sure I get myself a new fire extinguisher for my truck!

Anybody else have any close calls with fire and their trucks?

 

I carry several FX in my B-II. Dry-Chem + Press. Water & Halon under the hood. I've never burned a truck down but I learned that Cats get too hot to park in the weeds. I only park on short, wet or stone dead.
JK

 

Nice Bronco.

 

I've never had one of my vehicles catch fire, but have stopped and used a FX to help others, not to mention fighting dozens of vehicle fires with the fire dept. I gave a ride to a female co-worker to a company meeting once and she noticed my FX. She said that made me paranoid, I told her that's better than being one of these unprepared individuals jumping up and down and panicing, hoping and expecting someone else to stop and handle the situation they should be handling themselves. She quickly changed the subject.

 

if you ever want to keep your truck after a fire, you'll have to have a FX in the truck. i'm yet to see a vechial fire that wasn't a total loss, except when they had an FX and put it out them selves.... by the time the FD gets there, it's too late, cause it only takes a few min's to burn up a truck.

also, a large # of grass/bush/forrest fires are started by hot cat's on vechial's parked in the grass...

 

the joys of muddin

 

Boy have I ever had a fire in my truck.
It was on my 4x4 non-ford truck, and I shoulda let it burn but I just got it so I didnt think about it at the time.
I was wiring KC lights up to the grill/brush gaurd and the switch they gave me I didn't like. So I just grabbed a switch off the shelf in my garage and didn't think about looking at the voltage and the amperage. I ran my wires thru the firewall and didn't put the inline fuse in it yet. I was going to do that after I had them working so I could put it where I wanted to.
Well, needless to say the wire somehow rubbed a hole in the insulator at the firewall AND the switch was 2 small for the voltage/amperage. So here goes my new truck up in flames. I didn't have my wire cutters under the hood with me, and didn't have time to run and get them from the seat inside.... sooo... i grabbed the wire and yanked them off the battery. Boy did that ever hurt. Melted all layers of my skin in the bend of my finger completely off. Boy did that take forever for that to heal. Plus it was a PITA digging out the molten plastic that was embedded in my hand.
I don't think a FX would have helped, but I learned from the on to put the inline fuse in BEFORE you try to turn something on, even if its just for a few seconds.
Luckily, nothing in the truck was hurt buy my wiring and my hand.
Anyways, this is getting long... sorry for rambling on but wanted to share my story.

 

Thanks for the compliment mattsbox99.

I also did something similar to what Andy did one time and shorted out a wire. I had to open my hood and as I did smoke just came pouring out. Luckily I grabbed a pair of pliers and so I didn't get burnt. Burns suck! My truck was fine except for the wire that shorted out, it melted and burned all of the insulation off itself.

 

About 7 years ago when we first got the mail contract and we had 7 big, brand new petes, kw's and volvos. Nice trucks, all of them. One day a new driver for us was headed across the state on Intrstate 90 towards Dillon Montana. One of the drive tires locked up from a crushed air line feeding the brakes. The tire smoked for a while and then caught on fire. The new guy didn't know about tire fires and didn't know where the FX was. We lost the truck and trailer but the mail was mostly safe because the containers had FX's on them they were experimental at the time. The truck and trailer cost us $150,000 but the insurance paid for most of it. The driver no longer works for us. It is definetlyvery easy to lose one of these trucks to a fire and they aren't cheap by any means.

 

When I was a kid, my dad got a deal on a new Suburban. We got it off the lot with no problems. A week later, we (5 kids, 2 rents) were all riding in it to the grocery store..snap, crackle, pop. The cab fills with smoke. Turns out something in the dash caught fire. Gotta love that Chebby quality. Needless to say, hes never even turned his head in the general direction of a Chebby since.

Rich

 

My crazy grandfather, may he rest in peace, had an un-natural lack of fear or even general common sense in matters of flamage. He lost several vehicles over the years with his famous 'hot bucket of embers under the oil pan' method of preheating old beaters so they would start or at least turn over in the cold of winter. He once built a 'small' fire to warm up his homemade camper on the back of a '37 International one ton flatbed, directly on the wooden truck bed, and directly under two sets of metal bedsprings, on top of which he placed his bed and then himself. Everyone in our hunting camp awoke in the middle of the night to the ackred smoke of the smoldering mattress, except for Grand Dad, he was all toasty warm and content. We had to back the burning truck down to the lake and start tosing his bed in the water before the whole truck burnt down. That was just hunting, he was a constant worry the last years of his life,we built him a small house in back of my parents, and he nearly burned it down a dozen times.

 

We were camping near Leadville, CO last Memorial Day, and the guys in the campsite nearest to us started a forest fire while jumping a battery.
They had a Suburban charging a half ton Chevy truck, both older, and the battery in the truck caught fire and exploded.
There was one guy in their camp when it happened, and when the truck went up, he grabbed his gas cans, jumped in the Suburban and bolted. Left all of their gear and just took off.
When we heard the explosion, it sounded like a shotgun blast, so we ignored it. By the time we smelled the smoke the fire was within 100 feet, and we were at the end of the road, so we had to drive right past the fire to get out. We left everything behind and ran for our lives.
The fire brigade got there very quickly and saved our campsite, along with my buddie's brand new Ranger. The guys that started thhe fire tried to blame it on us, but the fire marshall told him to shut up.
Man, that truck burned down to bare steel...we got lucky that day.
BDV

 

A friend of mine had a FIREbird several years ago. He let his girlfriend drive it one day. POW, something coughed under the hood and started it on fire. She didn't turn the key off, so the electric fuel pump kept pumping gas to feed the fire. Took the fire dept. forever to get the thing put out.