At 2:30 am we had a fire on Nomad. It was the bilge pump. A Rule Industries 500 GPH automatic bilge pump. West Marine # 491928. It was fused, with a 10 amp fuse.
Thankfully I was still awake. Suddenly I noticed the smell and smoke. It seemed to be coming from the bilge. My first reaction was .. electric heaters, but they were ok. Then I checked the hot water heater, which is in the bilge, but that was off. I turned off the AC switch, thinking perhaps it was the AC wiring. Then I saw flames coming out from the edges of the floorboards. That is a scary sight I tell you. I woke up Danielle, filled a pot of water and lifted the floorboard.
There was the bilge pump, happily burning away. A crown of flames was shooting off it's top. i was releived to see that nothing else was burning yet. I emptied the pot of water on the pump, then got another one, which doused the fire. I could still hear crackling, so I poured a few more buckets of water into the bilge. Carefully checking the area, there was nothing else burning.

I took some pictures. They can be seen here
about 30 minutes before the fire, the bilge pump came on for an unusually long time (one minute instead of a few seconds) I was going to check the water in the bilge but figured, that since the pump stopped, it must have been taken care of, so I was litening if the pump was going to start cyclin. Well .. that pump never came on again.

I would recommend, if any of you has those automatic bilge pumps, get rid of it, or fuse it very lightly (3-4 amps max) . This one was about 6 months old. I will check with Rule and see what they say.
Feel free to email me at ahmet@sailnomad.com if you have any questions.