A $100,000 motorhome has been destroyed after it burst into flames on the Hume Highway in Victoria.
The 57-year-old driver was travelling near Wangaratta when he switched fuel tanks. The Border Mail newspaper reports that the Winnebago then shuddered, but the man kept driving … until being told by a passing truck driver that his vehicle was on fire!
The man and his 18-year-old son quickly escaped, but their motorhome was well alight by that point.
Sergeant Michael Connors told the Border Mail that the RV was totally gutted, and that gas tanks with a bleeder valve continued to burn.
“It took some time before it was actually under control and fully extinguished,” he said.
There were long delays for other drivers.
Sergeant Connors said other family members had flown home, and that the father and son had planned to hire a car to return to Melbourne. * Comment below
It would have been the relief valves on the gas cylinders not ‘bleeder valves’. The cylinders heat up and the relief valves open due to an increase in pressure in the cylinders. They are there to prevent a ‘blevie’ ( an explosion ) of the cylinders.