I think you will find a lot more than 3 instances of in-flight fires in the last decade. A friend of mine had a severe electrical fire in a 172 a few years back. Luckily he is still with us. I can remember a Cirrus which threw a rod and burned all the way down up here a few years back as well.
The pilot killed by an inflight engine fire last year near my base was Glenn Saunders from our Canard Forum. The TSB up here has promised to send me the report when finished but they are very slow to investigate experimental accidents. I post the newspaper story below:
He almost made it
36-year-old from florida en route to vernon to visit his wife, daughter
By DELON SHURTZ
Lethbridge Herald
A pilot who died in a fiery plane crash Wednesday was trying to return to the Lethbridge County Airport when his kit-built VariEze aircraft went down only minutes after taking off.
"He tried to make it back and couldn't," said Ron Singer, spokesman for Nav Canada, which provides navigation services at the airport.
Singer said Glenn Saunders, 36, radioed the airport his engine was on fire and he was turning around. He crashed about 3:30 p.m. just short of his goal, on a gravel road northwest of the airport.
"Our flight services station did receive a distress call and we passed it on to the fire department," Singer said.
The pilot's brother, Mike, who lives in Westford, Mass., said Saunders was flying from his home in Oakland Park, Fla., to Vernon, B.C. where his six-year-old daughter and wife were visiting her family.
"He was on the last leg of his trip," Mike said.
He said his brother had been flying for about 15 years and was a certified aviation mechanic and airframe specialist. He bought the airplane used but installed a Rotax 914 supercharged engine, a type he had worked on many times before.
The aircraft was similar, although not identical, to one being piloted by country singer John Denver when he crashed and died in 1997.
Although he loved airplanes, Mike said Saunders' family was the most important part of his life.
"He was a great father. He was a real family man; quiet and down to earth."
The Transportation Safety Board of Canada is investigating the tragic incident and was combing the site Thursday for clues to the cause. Senior investigator Bill Kemp said his main objective is to determine what caught fire and why.
The scene shows evidence where the plane may have skimmed across a field before it flipped over, struck an embankment and tore apart on a gravel road. Fuel spilling from the wing tank, which ripped off on impact, fed the fire which had erupted.
Jon Lee, western regional manager for the safety board, said it's too early to determine the cause of the fire or crash and it could take days or weeks before the investigation is complete. He said investigators begin by collecting as much data as possible and, by the process of elimination, try to determine what contributed to the incident.
"We cast the net very wide at the beginning," Lee said.
Investigators consider whether human error may have led to the crash but they also look at environmental conditions and mechanical failure which could indicate safety deficiencies.
"We try to answer why did that aircraft crash."
The crash has caught the attention of an American lawyer who is investigating accidents in the U.S. involving small, kit-built airplanes. A Lethbridge man working for attorney Brian Goates said there have been other crashes which may have been caused by faulty mechanical parts, and he wants to know if there was a mechanical problem with Saunders' plane.
"Airplanes don't just catch fire and crash," he said.
The photo (not posted here) from the story of the burnt wreckage and pieces is what made me sick and prompted my decision to install a fire system.