Interesting Fire in our area..

[Ladder 29-51]

This fire was reported today although odd, you dont see this very often.. Here is the link http://www.wzzm.com/news/newsdefault...articleid=4885

[hwoods]

The Washington Post (paper) and the TV news in the Washington DC area have covered(no pun intended) quite a few of these in DC. Several incidents like this have made "Firehouse.com News" pages in the past year. The Electric power company in DC has a lot of underground transmission/distribution lines and, some say due to age, failures with a fire are increasing. The DCFD has gotten a good bit of experience in this field lately. Stay Safe....

[NJFFSA16]

Underground fire forces hundreds from downtown buildings

(Grand Rapids-AP) -- Firefighters in Grand Rapids have put out
an underground electrical fire today that led to the evacuation of
hundreds of people from at least five buildings.
There have been no injuries reported.
The fire was reported around 1:45 this afternoon in an
underground electrical vault.
Authorities cordoned off several downtown streets.
Grand Rapids Fire Chief Mike Burton says it took Consumers
Energy about two hours to properly shut off the power running
through the complex electrical equipment.
Once that was done, firefighters were able to smother the last
of the flames by 4:15 p-m.
Federal Square, the Trust Building and three buildings at
Kendall College of Art and Design were among the structures
evacuated because some smoke had gotten inside.
The cause of the fire isn't known. Burton says it burned in
three separate areas of the vault.

[firemangeorge]

We have these happen about once a year, usually downtown. I've never fought one, but the big danger with them is the flying manhole covers. They are usually a result of a tranformer exploding. Won't mind if I never make one of those...

[Raffel51]

I just happened to be at the downtown station when this occured. It was quite impressive seeing the fireball erupt out out of one of the manholes, and the simultaneous evacuation of about 8 downtown highrises.