'Electrical Fire Outside"

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I live in the eastern US blizzard area in a county of about 800,000 people. At one point today I counted 16 "Electrical Fire Outside" runs on the county's online WebCAD system and every time I look there is at least 10 going on. Does anyone know what specifically causes these fires? (Obviously related to snow/ice)

[nmfire]

Wires down or transformer fires. Why they call them outdoor electrical fires, I don't know.

[lexfd5]

I'll bet most are from broken mast heads for the electric service drops. We made tons of these after our last ice storm.

[Paraphoe]

Wires down because of branches, branches touching wires and burning up, transformers sparking, etc, etc, etc. Been on 4 of these in a few hours tonight.

[GeorgeWendtCFI]

Wires down or transformer fires. Why they call them outdoor electrical fires, I don't know.

Same reasons they call a toaster fire inside an electrical fire.

[lexfd5]

Same reasons they call a toaster fire inside an electrical fire.

As busy as we have been recently that would be a structure fire...

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I just got the totals from the county dispatch center. In one day there were 208 of these calls.

[ScareCrow57]

Wet branch lays across two wires completing the circuit. The resistance of the branch creates heat, the heat creates fire.

The other way is to complete the circuit to ground

[islandfire03]

some of the more spectacular electric transmission line fires are caused by the insulators breaking down during periods of snow & ice that cause the primaries to short to ground[earth] through the wooden crossbars and cause some pretty spectacular fireworks shows. Eventually they burn through or short out the nearest fuse switch and kill the power supply. Usually when the power supply stops , so does the fire, but not always.
We deal with these all the time due to the salt air corrosion on the poles and equipment.

[nmfire]

My favorite "outdoor electrical fire"

[pasobuff]

Now THAT'S an electrical fire! :-)

[Acklan]

A bag of popcorn and a large glass of sweet tea and I could watch that all night.

[LaFireEducator]

I'll have my tea unsweet please. Though on second thought, Lemonade may be the better choice.

[whfd hems 930]

350,000 volts, arcing to ground, and all of that transformer oil makes a pretty good fire. Heard the electric in the background arcing.

[CGITCH]

350,000 volts, arcing to ground, and all of that transformer oil makes a pretty good fire. Heard the electric in the background arcing.

Going to take a whole lot of water to put that out.....

[mtg55]

As previously stated, branches in wires, wires down and arcing, transformers going, fuses going, pole on fire, ect....call PECO and go home. WebCAD? sounds like you might be right next door to me.

[nmfire]

Going to take a whole lot of water to put that out.....

Thats probably the LAST thing I would put on it. Actually it will probably take very little water. Once that liquid burns off and the station is deenergized, there will be very little if anything left to burn.

[johnny46]

Does anyone know what specifically causes these fires? (Obviously related to snow/ice)

An unrestrained chemical reaction producing heat and light.

[CGITCH]

Thats probably the LAST thing I would put on it. Actually it will probably take very little water. Once that liquid burns off and the station is deenergized, there will be very little if anything left to burn.

I would not even get a hose out...watch that thing burn. That was my poor attempt at sarcasm.