K1100 on FIRE!!!

[TexasT]

   On my way to work today I felt really warm air on the inside of my left thigh.  You can imagine my reaction when I looked down and saw flames shooting out form under the tank.  I was able to get the bike to the side, open the seat and pull the side covers off but then what.  Thankfully a passing trucker pulled over and held a fire extinguisher out to me.  At that point it had been burning for about 3 min but I was able to put it out before the tank went up.  Bike is at the local dealer(who won't work on anything older than 10 years by the way) so I have not had a chance to remove the tank and take a look but has anyone else had a fire problem with their K1100RS or any guesses as to the cause.

[frankenduck]

Were you running your heated grips on the low setting for a while when this occurred?

[Jumpin Jimmy B]

 Burnin down the house! Or K1100 in this case.

 I think it was 09 when at the BMWMOA rally in Johnson city my bike while not on fire tried real HARD to light it up.

 I had been riding on Sat. Bike parked mid afternoon till Sun morning. Was damp and foggy. Break camp, pack bike & gear after checking over the bike.
Turn key, choke bike, fires right up. Start putting on helmet and notice the bike is smoking! Thought is was just water off the pipes of radiator. Then I smelled that smell. You know it. Smells like plastic but weird. Like liquid epoxy and now the smoke is really coming out! Turn bike off.
 All the gear goes flying. Seat up, side panels off. Wave off smoke, pull tank and hold off to the side. Turn ignition on, takes all of 2 seconds and WOWZA!!!!!
 I got a RED HOT FREAKING WIRE IN MY HARNESS!!!!!

 Ignition off. I am bummed. I am 830 miles form home on a Sun morning and I want to go. It's early AM and I figures I was clearing out in good time.
So I flick the ignition on again & mark the wire. I then fins a spot, choose a spot and cut that wire. It runs DOWN into the main harness and goes up into the fairing. Turn ignition on again, no more smoke. I have no gas gauge or temp gauge. No turn signals, no brake light. #1 fuse is toast. Bike runs fine. Fluck it. I tape of the burned wire, reassemble & pack it all and bug out.
 I ride hot, hard & fast. Hand signal as needed, watch my six extra close. Roll home in 13 hours.

 Next day, after work, I start pulling it all apart. I cannot figure it out. The small harness from the temp gauge is all fried. Burned up bad from the gauge which is all burned in the back all the way into that main harness. I take pics and start to open the main harness. I have damaged wires here and there. I open it ALL up and spread it out best I can. I order a complete used harness from Beemer Boneyard for 99 bucks and use it as a donor harness. I use the complete temp guage portion and wire that in fixing as much other damage as I can see. I never did really figure out why it did this, but think either the guage itself shorted out, or the wires to the guage got pinched and shorted out somewhere, somehow. Button it all up, nice and clean as I could make it, been good ever since.
 I think now that I got real lucky thinking about what could have happened at speed on the road. I did not feel lucky at the time, but can laugh now looking back.

 You may not be able to figure out why yours got going, but as Drake was questing about the heated grips, seems to have happened to others. Mine did not have heated grips on it when I had my little event. I have them now, but not wired into the harness.

 Best of luck with your ride, hope you can get it fixed up.

 Here's some pics of the melt down. Not really a fire like you had, but scary anyway.

[TexasT]

I did not have the grips on but I was in stop and go traffic so the fan had kicked on a couple of times.  Had a look at it today and as it turns out the "Johnny Blanket saved my tank and may have kept it from blowing.  The harness is cooked as is the top of the airbox and some other plastic but the paint on the underside of the tank is fine. Go figure.

[frankenduck]

Unless you're in a TV show or movie (or have a plastic tank like a KTM) your chances of you tank "going up" are very slim.

[NickAndHisBrick]

Unless you're in a TV show or movie (or have a plastic tank like a KTM) your chances of you tank "going up" are very slim

Agreed. I remember watching a house fire once. City street with only a driveway between the houses, first house started the second house on fire ... and it took a full 45 min for the gas tank in the minivan between them to rupture and explode.

I would have to guess that the gasoline was boiling for quite some time already and the rubber fittings for the filler neck finally failed enough for the tank to start spewing massive amounts of gasoline fumes ... poof...