FIRE SAFETY
WARNING
A travelling family has described the scene of a
fire that decimated a rental motorhome at Cahill’s
Crossing in Kakadu National Park.
Scott Gilchrist, whose family is known as ‘Three
Escape Together’ on Facebook, said the incident,
which occurred in late July, served as a reminder
to all travellers to be vigilant.
“As is typical at Cahill's Crossing, which divides
Kakadu from Arnhem Land, a crowd of tourists
had gathered at high tide to watch wild saltwater
crocodiles catch barramundi swimming over
the causeway,” Scott said. “The spectacle was
interrupted by frantic yells of ‘who has the rental
motorhome in the carpark?’
“There was smoke rising out of gaps in the body of
the motorhome and clearly a serious problem had
developed inside the locked RV. The foreigners
who had rented the motorhome were quickly
identified and together they ran with the crowd
back to the carpark. While adjacent vehicles
were being moved to safer locations, the couple
opened the door and entered to quickly recover
personal effects, including passports, wallets
and a camera.
“The closest fire department to Cahill's Crossing
is in Jabiru, 40km away, but communication
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difficulties and distance meant the fire truck
arrived only in time to smother the chassis in
water and foam. Of greater concern was the
spread of fire into the adjacent bushland and a
spotter plane was in the air relatively quickly,
possibly in response to the plumes of thick, black
smoke from the burning fibreglass.
“The tourists were supported by other travellers
in the only way genuine Australians know
how. For the following week, all that remained
of someone’s trip of a lifetime was a melted
pile of fibreglass and metal sitting in a circle of
burned bitumen.”
A spokesperson for the Northern Territory’s
emergency services said the exact cause of the
fire has not been determined but “the culprit is
believed to be an electrical fault related to the
onboard fridge, as the fire in its early stages
was observed to be coming from that area of
the vehicle”.
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