Firefighters battle heat and humidity, extinguish motorhome fire at St. George RV dealership

Written by Chris Reed
July 29, 2022

ST. GEORGE — The smell of electrical smoke permeated through a closed-off Auto Mall Drive early Friday afternoon as a recreational vehicle about to be serviced caught fire at the RVs.com by Camping World dealership in St. George. 

St. George firefighters work on a recreational vehicle that caught fire at RVs.com by Camping World on Auto Mall Drive, St. George, Utah, July, 29, 2022 | Photo by Chris Reed, St. George News

No one was injured, and while the motorhome was a total loss, the service area suffered only some smoke and superficial damage. The plastic handles on one of the doors of the service bay appeared to have melted.

Nani Falanai was working inside the dealership building when she smelled the distinctive smoke of an electrical fire shortly before 2 p.m. She and the other workers evacuated, and seeing that the fire was coming from a diesel pusher near the service bays, Falannai immediately closed the service bay doors.

By the time she walked outside, the St. George Fire Department already had arrived.

“They were already out here before I even got out,” Falanai said, and her co-worker Eric Wilson noted it took them just 2 minutes to arrive. 

St. George Police closed off a portion of Auto Mall Drive, but the street wasn’t empty; rather, it was filled with fire vehicles and hoses.

It ended up taking an hour for several fire crews to put out the flames with a large response that may have seemed to be larger than the fire needed, but St. George Fire Chief Robert Stoker said this was deliberate to help the crews deal with the humid and hot weather. 

St. George firefighters rotate out in the humidity and heat as they work on a recreational vehicle that caught fire at RVs.com by Camping World on Auto Mall Drive, St. George, Utah, July, 29, 2022 | Photo by Nick Yamashita, St. George News

“We try to get more personnel than we normally need, just so we can rotate through them a lot quicker, get them out of their gear, get them cooled down over to the rehab, get some fluids in them, then get it back in,” said Stoker, who could be seen handing out water bottles to the relieved firefighters.

Stoker and workers on the scene said the vehicle had been in storage and was being brought out for the customer to pick up. But as it was being started, the person working on it noticed the smell of smoke, suggesting an issue in either the engine or electrical system in the rear of the vehicle.

Rather than the typical dark or gray smoke, a brown smoke rose from the vehicle that Stoker said was caused by the materials in the RV. Flames could be seen inside the back of the vehicle and under it near the tires. 

“We found is the fire had actually traveled in that subfloor, above the rear axles, and so our crews actually had to go inside and cut holes in the floor that they could access that fire,” Stroker said. “It was getting enough oxygen that it really took off and was burning.”

Flames can be seen in the undercarriage of a recreational vehicle that caught fire at RVs.com by Camping World on Auto Mall Drive, St. George, Utah, July, 29, 2022 | Photo by Nick Yamashita, St. George News

Even as the fire seemed limited to the vehicle, the seeming lack of danger was deceiving. The service building was within a foot or so of flames. On the side of the building about 30 yards away from the burning vehicle were large propane tanks. 

Stoker said for that reason, firefighters don’t just go storming in to a fire. They need advanced intelligence on what they’re fighting. 

“What we try to do is know our areas. We know from previous inspections and those things, this is a tight parking lot. The possibility for spread and exposures was very high,” Stoker said. “So our first priority is to get this fire contained to the area of origin, which should be the motor home, and then try to extinguish it, but try to get all the exposures out of the way.”

The Camping World workers stood against another RV on the lot about 25 yards away watching the firefighters do their work. One worker noted how it was better that the RV fire took place on the asphalt of a dealership in town, as opposed to in one of the nearby wilderness areas that are prone to wildfire season disasters.

“As a company we have no comment; it’s unfortunate for the customer,” Charles Gunter, the facility’s general manager, said.

Employees of other nearby businesses came over to see what was causing that smell of electrical smoke. 

While not as bad, Falanai said there was a similar fire at a different RV dealership she was working at a year ago. 

“Once a year is enough,” she said.

St. George News reporter Nick Yamashita contributed to this story. 

Photo Gallery


Copyright St. George News, SaintGeorgeUtah.com LLC, 2022, all rights reserved.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Chris Reed serves as a reporter for St. George News, where he has been honored with several awards from the Society of Professional Journalists for his work, including first-place accolades. He started his journalism career as a sports reporter and editor in Southern California where he once compared shoe sizes with Shaquille O'Neal and exchanged mix tapes with members of the Los Angeles Kings. After growing up in the San Fernando Valley learning karate skills from Mr. Miyagi and spending a decade in Las Vegas mostly avoiding the casinos, he came to St. George for love and married his soulmate, a lifetime Southern Utah resident. He is the proud father of two boys, his youngest a champion against both autism and Type 1 diabetes.

Email: [email protected]
Twitter: @STGNews

Free News Delivery by Email

Would you like to have the day's news stories delivered right to your inbox every evening? Enter your email below to start!