Truck burned to the ground

x219c · August 22

So, my truck burned to the ground this past February. Long story short, at around 5:30am, my wife was woken up by some noise and assumed our 2 year old daughter was up. She checked the cameras and by chance saw light out front. She went and looked, and weird enough, the truck was on fire. She came and got me, where I ran outside barely dressed with a fire extinguisher. The extinguisher lasted all of 20 seconds or so, and did next to nothing to this fire. It was too far gone by this point. I'm lucky I hadn't parked in the garage the previous day, as we'd be homeless, if not worse. In hindsight, I'm glad the extinguisher wasn't able to stop the fire... I can only imagine how this truck would have been "repaired." What woke her up was the tires blowing out. I got to the fire as it was starting to go up the tailgate and into the bed. It was winter in Wisconsin, so using a hose or things like that weren't options. They'd all be frozen solid at this point.

What I know:

The fire started in the rear, either at or very near the bumper. It wasn't in the bed, or engine bay or anything like that. I have the entire thing on video, and I can see it starting at the back.
The truck hadn't been modified in any way in over 6 months. Driven daily, and never abused.
The truck had very few modifications to the rear end. It had a topper, and that's pretty much it. The power lock for the topper was tied into the tailgate, but those wires are so small, there's no way they could carry the current needed to start a fire like this.
There was a 7-way T-Harness used from Leer for the topper to have the CHMSL work, and also provide 12V in the bed. All of this was fused at the topper, but was just a T harness at the 7 way to provide those functions. There was a small converter box on this harness that took the rear lights to generate the 3rd brake signal.

What I suspect:

The only thing with that much power in the rear of the truck at that area is the 12v power wire for the 7-way. There just isn't that much stuff at or near the back bumper that could cause something like this. This wire is always live.
Either a rodent or something got up there and was chewing the wires, or something went wrong with the T-harness converter box. Those are the only options I could come up with. I don't know why a fuse wouldn't have blown before something like this would be able to short like this... but that's the only thing I can think of. The topper had fuses at the topper, but that's after the T harness. There should have been a factory fuse for the 12v line under the hood, I believe. The fuse was never modified in any way.
There was nothing really left... The insurance investigation couldn't really find what caused the fire. Looking at the photos, you can see that all of the wiring was reduced to copper.

All in all, I'm really lucky nobody was hurt. We easily could have lost our lives. The insurance company was fair with the truck value... It totaled the trailer in front of it and melted most of the front of my house... Even warped the garage door. All of which I'm still dealing with. I've since gotten a new truck, but most of the other repairs are essentially waiting for contractors to have time. I was pulling chunks of aluminum out of the driveway for weeks after this. They eventually had to re-pave the driveway.

Edited August 24 by x219c

mikeyk101 · August 22

Wow! Very scary and glad you and the family are ok. I also have a topper on my 2016 so this is something I need to keep an eye on. Mine is a Century but those are also built at Leer factory. Mine has the CHMSL light working as well as the interior light that is wired to the bed cargo light so controlled by the cargo light switch on dash. I don't have 12v accessory power in the bed though. I need to see how they powered everything. And I too live in Wisconsin although I don't think that is as big a factor as an issue with wiring.

I think you could be right and wouldn't be surprised if it was a rodent chewing on some wiring in rear. But you bring up a good point and surprised it didn't blow a fuse somewhere first.

CamGTP · August 23

Atleast the fire probably kept you warm when you were out there with barely any clothes on.

JimCost2014 · August 23

That is a hot fire to burn the paint off

x219c · August 23

Hot it was. Beyond melting the siding, it helped with the snow too.

Due to the proximity to the house, we ended up evacuating to our other truck and watching from the road while we waited for the fire department. It only took 15 minutes or so for them to get there, but the truck was gone. Much faster than I ever would have thought.

In the end, another lucky thing was having the cameras. First, that's how we found out what was going on. Second... The insurance investigator had a lot easier job, which made our life much easier as a result.

x219c · August 24

I went ahead and put a Timelapse on YouTube for those that might be interested. I tried adding background audio using the YT editor so it wasn't just dead air. I lowered the audio mix level to just above zero. Youtube "fixed" it for me. There's no info in the audio, so feel free to mute.

Edited August 24 by x219c

xranger90 · August 27

That sucks. Glad no one was hurt. Update us what your insurance concluded.

x219c · August 27

The truck was burnt beyond investigation itself. Any wire left was bare and tracing it down would have been a nightmare, likely. On top of it being difficult to examine, it’s a relatively small claim to expend the kinds of resources you’d need to get to the bottom of it.

Because a truck started on fire in the driveway with no apparent reason, the owner becomes the focus of the investigation. Having the footage showing nobody and nothing had been near the truck just made our lives much easier. They sent the release for what they’d be going after (taxes, bank accounts, phone records… on and on) and I asked if it would be helpful to see the security footage. That sped things along, by a lot. I don’t think they ended up needing the other info in the end.

After it was all said and done, I think they sold it at copart for $250. It was a good truck and it sucks it went like that. But it’s an important lesson. The flames spread fast. It’s not like gas or anything, but had it gotten to the house, we’d be homeless right now, if not worse. It was close. I’ll definitely be watching this kind of stuff in the future much more carefully.