Andrew its difficult to attempt to anyalise what happened from your description. One can only speculate that the ignition was some sort of electrical short on board that perhaps ignited leaking glow fuel.

Glow fuel is insidious since it burns in bright daylight almost invisibly as some have described. Although it is rare compared to fires from electric, gasoline and jet fueled models it is still a factor that we sometimes tend to take to lightly. Where you were flying can also be a factor in viability. If you were flying from one of the two common dry lake sites up there in Vegas then this is far worse. Being surrounded entirely by this very bright and whitish relection from the lake bed on a bright sunny day which I believe it was this morning makes spotting a fire extremely difficult.

Some years back two of us were flying at the field and he picked up his flight box to leave and he screamed dropping the box. He was severaly burned and I had to take him to the hospital abandoning our equipment. it was started by horribly poor wiring on an old box and right next to the leaky old fuel can, agine our field is very much dry lake like and very a very sunny day. It is for this reason I never agine used a box with a power panel and an attached fuel can. My fuel no matter what type is always in a separate can with its own attached geared manual pump.

Where in or on the airplane did you notice the fire: in the wing compartment or behind fire firewall area? What kind of glow ignitor are you using? What is the condition of the airplane now? Can you describe or photograph the burned area on the airplane?


John