Wednesday, May 02, 2007

Goodby old coach

Where to begin....

This past week or so we have had insurance investigators on all sides here trying to figure out the cause of the fire. I think we have had no less than 10 representatives of insurance companies as well as experts , engineers and specialists that do this for a living .....looking and digging through the mess from the fire. The smell just does not go away and we have had to keep an old pair of clothes and shoes for when we are anywhere near the coach or the area around it.

At this point, it appears that somewhere in the coach some heavy wiring shorted out and eventually heated to the point of combustion or at least provided the heat for something nearby to combust. The experts poked around and picked up pieces of wiring and anything else that might point to a more distinct cause and of course took all kinds of pictures to document everything. They all were interesting to watch with everyone dictating into portable recorders marking things etc.
How they determine anything from a mess like above is beyond me but they seemed to conclude that it was indeed a short in something in the coach that led to the fire. After they left we were finally given the ok to get what we could out of the coach, but other than the outside compartments down low most everything was destroyed. We were able to get silverware and some of the pots and pans cleaned up and they will be used again, but all the books, maps campground guides and other treasures were gone or destroyed.
.The wrecker arrived and spent quite a bit of time preparing it for its last trip. It was slowly pulled out of the parking area with a great deal of squealing and noise. Like it didn't want to go.
They wrapped it pretty good with tarps to prevent debris from flying off while being towed
Backing down the street on its last trip.

Not sure what happens next, but we are starting to look for a replacement and everyone should know that we have no qualms about looking at another Monaco product. We both think they make an excellent product and would buy one again. This fire from all the discussion appears to be a bit of a fluke....the investigators said that most fires in motorhomes have been caused by refrigerators or kitchen fires.

We have had lots of emails from friends and even complete strangers from all over which we certainly appreciate. We thank you for your concern, but things will get back to normal soon!!