Motor home catches fire, explodes south of Safford

By Jon Johnson
Assistant Editor
Published on Thursday, October 29, 2009 3:21 PM MST

A 25-foot motor home caught fire and exploded Wednesday afternoon, sending a fireball into the sky that could be seen for miles.

According to Department of Public Safety Sgt. Dan Long, the driver of the motor home, Larry Jensen, 55, of Safford was headed to Willcox shortly after 2 p.m. when he thought one of his gasoline tanks emptied.

Jensen allegedly told DPS officers he pulled his 1985 Freeport motor home over to the side of the road near milepost 107 (about 13 miles south of Safford) to switch tanks and noticed a fuel line was leaking gas. At about the same time, he noticed a problem with one of his battery cables. Soon after, a spark from the cable ignited a pool of gas that had collected underneath the vehicle.

Firefighters douse the smoldering wreckage of a man's motor home Wednesday afternoon. The vehicle caught fire after a loose battery cable sparked a fuel line leak. The fire eventually caused two propane tanks to explode, thoroughly demolishing the vehicle.

He attempted to drive away from the gas pool, but the fire followed the fuel and ignited the motor home. As Jensen attempted to drive away, he ended up spreading fire along the shoulder of the highway. Motorists traveling behind Jensen were able to smother the fires by scooping up sand with their hands and throwing it on the blazes. The quick-acting motorists likely prevented an even more serious situation as the wind was blowing and could easily have spread the fires, according to witnesses.

Jensen eventually gave up trying to outrun the fire after about a quarter mile and used up three fire extinguishers in an attempt to extinguish his vehicle, according to Long. When that didn't work, he was forced to retreat to a safe distance and could do nothing but watch it burn.

Soon afterward, the fire caused the motor home's two propane tanks to explode, thoroughly demolishing the vehicle.

The Safford Fire Department arrived and extinguished what was left of the wreckage.

The situation caused Highway 191 to be closed for about 45 minutes and created a backlog of vehicles for about a quarter of a mile. Nobody was injured throughout the ordeal.

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Comments

5 comment(s)

Plan a trip wrote on Nov 1, 2009 7:04 PM:

" When going to Phoenix or Tucson it is best to leave an hour earlier and be sure you get there on time.
However people in this valley run on Mormon standard time which is about 10 minutes late to everything. "

DKerslake wrote on Oct 31, 2009 4:48 AM:

" How sad that "Missed Appt" couldn't leave a note expressing sadness for the motorist that lost his vehicle. For all we know, this RV was that person's HOME that was just destroyed - but selfish MA has nothing to say but "Oh, what an Inconvenience! I had to wait for 45 minutes to get past that wreck! We should blame the emergency services for doing such a crappy job!". Typical of the world that we are living in today. It's all about ME!! "

Missed appt wrote on Oct 30, 2009 3:08 PM:

" The road was close longer than 45 minutes. It took quite awile for the fire dept to get there. Then they had to clean it up. I don't understand why they coulnt let people get thru after the fire was out. They could of let just one lane at a time. Some people missed very important appointments in Tucson! I'm not very impressed with how DPS handled it!!! "

Alice wrote on Oct 29, 2009 10:20 PM:

" Ouch, talk about one heck of a bad day. Gkad everyone was okay though. "

Good job wrote on Oct 29, 2009 5:06 PM:

" Thanks to all the people who helped but the fire out, there are many homes out there and with wind and dry bushes everywhere it could have been much worse. Glad everyone was ok "

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