Kyrgyzstan – A quiet day on the river turned into a nightmare scenario for this family of four after their off-road trailer burst into flames in a matter of moments.
Matt and Leah Prior and their two children were in the middle of an epic overland journey across 100+ countries supported by their Ineos Grenadier with a Patriot Campers trailer in tow when disaster struck. They were preparing lunch on river in Kyrgyzstan before heading down South to cross over into Western China when a fuel leak caught fire and severely burned the trailer. Thankfully no one was injured and they were able to unhitch the vehicle before it too was consumed by the flames but the trailer was burnt to a crisp.
“Our dream to travel the world, that we worked so hard for, and sacrificed so much to make happen, literally all went up in flames.”
After assessing the damage, the Priors decided the trailer was safe enough to tow so they continued their journey from Kyrgyzstan to Pakistan via China with the plan to get it repaired at the nearest Patriot Campers dealership in Mongolia. Terrible situation but they are thankful they were all okay.
Our dream turned into a nightmare in seconds…
We’d found a great lunch spot on the river. While chilli simmered, Matt and the kids played in the river, their laughter echoing off the rocks. Then suddenly, out of nowhere, a waterfall poured down from the top of trailer…
Leah: I thought it was water, then I smelled the fuel. Before I could shut off the gas, flames engulfed the whole trailer. I screamed for Matt.
Matt: I turned to see our home ablaze. My first thought was to make sure Leah and the kids were safe. They were crying, asking me to stay with them, but I couldn’t just watch it burn. I knew to fight the fire, I first had to remove the fuel sources. The trailer had a fuel bladder, three gas canisters, two lithium batteries, and the car was still hitched with more fuel.
I climbed onto the burning trailer, reminding myself there was no need to be a hero. Everyone was safe; this was just stuff. I tried unhooking the fuel bladder but the flames were too fierce and I burned my hand. I got one gas canister away, but the other big one was already black, engulfed in flames and ready to explode. The kitchen’s small canister was unreachable. Leah reminded me about our fire extinguisher—sadly it was useless —the fire was out of control.
The car was next, unhitching was brutal but I eventually drove it clear, lungs burning from smoke. Gasping, I took a moment to reassess.
Then, people appeared on the ridges, drawn by black smoke. They raced down to help, grabbing containers and filling them with river water. A man in a Russian truck brought a large extinguisher, but again, it did nothing. We continued to douse the trailer for over 15 minutes, prying it open to ensure the fire was out, hoping to prevent the lithium batteries from catching fire.
Staring at the smoldering wreckage, our lives upended, questions poured from the people around us: Are you okay? What now? Where will you stay? Etc
Overwhelmed, we needed some space. They respected that, leaving us to process. After hugs and counting our lucky stars that we were all ok, we decided to tidy the wreckage, secure the trailer, and drove to a yurt camp an hour away to regroup and plan our next steps.
We never thought we’d ever be making a video like this. Our overland dream turned into a nightmare within seconds. We had spent nearly a month exploring the wilder side of Kyrgyzstan. Our time here was coming to an end and we were headed to Kel Suu Lake, our last stop before heading down South to cross over into Western China. Our dream to travel the world, that we worked so hard for, and sacrificed so much to make happen, literally all went up in flames.
This is a massive hit to our overall plans and might ultimately mean we won’t be able to complete what we set out to do. In this episode, we go into more detail about what happened and what our plan is now… Thank you for being so supportive and generous with your heartfelt condolences after the last video. We can’t tell you how much we appreciate it. It’s great to know there’s such a good community of people here. We never imagined this happening and obviously would rather it hadn’t, but we are where we are. If you’d like to support us, here’s a link http://tinyurl.com/PWEstorytelling to help us get our home up and running again.
We’re a fair way behind online and so this has been a significant hit to the overall trip. We initially set this up after being asked by a few people how they could contribute to our journey (before the fire). It’s not something we’ve pushed at all. We’ve found it’s been the easiest way to allow people to support if they’d like to. So far, this has been specifically focused on the storytelling side of things. There are obviously a few significant additional costs to the original list that we’re now having to absorb, as you can imagine with a situation like this.
