There was one heck of a scary item in the news recently. The following screenshots were taken from a video that was recorded in the teeth of recent inclement weather. Overhead power lines had actually caught fire.

Figure 1 Overhead power lines that caught fire during inclement weather in Brooklyn, NY.

It looks to me like the photographer captured an exact moment in the center image of high winds, where we can see points of simultaneous ignition of what I suspect was flammable insulation material that had surrounded a copper center conductor. I further suspect that decades of weathering had caused that insulation material to deteriorate so that when high winds brought wires into contact, those wires set off sparking that resulted in the insulation material being ignited.

At one time, I read about overhead power line fires being a threat as a result of monk parrots making nests up there. I’ve seen those birds, and I’ve seen some of their enormous nests as well, but this situation clearly had nothing to do with those birds. This situation was strictly man-made.

This incident took place in Brooklyn, NY, but it seems likely that danger of this sort is widespread around the nation and around the world.

John Dunn is an electronics consultant and a graduate of The Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn (BSEE) and of New York University (MSEE).

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