Truck and bus fire incidents can be reduced

On Sydney’s M4 motorway, in June 2019, a major fire occurred on a coach requiring all passengers to be evacuated before the bus was engulfed in flames and was subsequently destroyed. Luckily, no one was injured.

In November last year, a bus fire erupted into flames while crossing the Sydney Harbour Bridge. This fire was also significant enough for the bus to be destroyed.

In January this year all southbound lanes of the M1 remained closed overnight as an extensive and complex clean up and salvage operation continued after a fuel tanker fire.

It’s a familiar story around Australia, as truck and bus fires cause death, injury, damage and holdups on an almost daily basis.

In 2018, the Office of Transport Safety Investigations found there was a fire or thermal incident on a bus in NSW reported every four days.

In 2016, Hartwood Consulting published a report on the most common causes of heavy vehicle fires. Since then, average engine bay temperatures have risen, thanks to increased pollution control equipment.

The Hartwood research team listed the following reasons:

>> Arcs on the starter or battery cables, the alternator cable or the positive feed wire into the cabin;
>> Flammable material resting against the turbo charger or the exhaust;
>> Fuel line rubs or failures that result in leaks or sprays of fuel onto the exhaust;
>> Lubrication oil line failures near the exhaust;
>> Turbo charger failures that cause excessive temperatures in the exhaust;
>> Leakage of hot gases from the exhaust;
>> Electrical arcs at terminals or connectors resulting from hot terminals that cause insulation to melt and catch fire;
>> Addition of heavy add-on loads onto a circuit not intended for it. If the fuse rating is increased, the wiring may not be adequately protected;
>> Collection of carbon dust or organic residue in alternators leading to short-circuits;
>> Tyres catching fire because they are flat or poorly inflated, or rubbing on hard surfaces;
>> Wheel bearing failures resulting in bearing grease catching fire or overheated brakes cause the bearing grease to catch fire;
>> Road debris that catches under vehicles and is combustible.

Many of those factors are obviously maintenance items, but some are design issues. The plethora of rubber hoses on today’s diesel engines caught the attention of Brisbane based hydraulic engineer, Norm Mathers.

Mathers Hydraulics is not your ordinary hose repair shop, but a globally recognised innovator with patents and manufacturing licence contracts in its portfolio.

This company has developed rigid, fireproof and leak-resistant plumbing for coolant, lubricating oil and fuel, with flexible joints that replicate the movement that fire-vulnerable rubber hoses provide.

Steel Safe Fluid Power components are being suggested as a way of eliminating some of the fire risks in heavy vehicles.