High Voltage Electrical Wire Fire - Northfield, MN

[bolmsp]

great now I got welder's flash 

[Azkill]

Hadouken!

[lifemetall]

someone made a lousy job building that connection

[FirstMrTornado]

0:57 - then 50,000 people lost power.

[akush55]

wow sale of TV must jump up for sure went this happen also fridges freezer and motor base appliances.

[funnyguy3452]

This is how Chuck Norris communicates with us "humans".

[joek0617]

it's NOT FIRE YET! just arcing....

[NgonHua]

I can be your Facebook friend or an electrical fire in your basement. The like button is right there, you decide.

[remzi133]

"Holy cow!"

[joeylawn36111]

one of the best high-voltage arc videos on YT.

[conzAb]

get up there and try fix it :)

[heartlessvietboy]

Its interesting how when I was a 12 yrs old, I actually took a moment to look up and realize all the telephone and electric wires hanging above me. It looked like a web hovering above me.

[jro9001]

AHHHHH!!!!! LASER!!!

[Bruinfan97]

looks like a portal or somethin

[srairmand]

Father... help me please!!!

[adropbear09]

Dude thats NUCKING FUTS 

[8500neds]

that's true..?

[ibuggle]

Strange.

Did you see that.

An enormous elecric arc coming from the ground. how can it be?

[ibuggle]

One weak phase. The industrial companies should have been happy! :D

[rastamon334]

if ur one of those stupid dbz fans at 1:18 thts how u go supa goku

[AllCarsAllTheTime2]

i bet that things great for cooking hot dogs. the george foreman arc burner.

[Knaeckebrotsaege]

firewire :o)

[PortaHHG]

parecia un KAME-HAME.HAAA!!!

[rangevsmager]

I present to you, the Death Star! On Earth!

[fairfrozen34]

lol slow motion "KAMEHAMEHA"!!!

[ThePoliceChaser]

Great Video

[cool29801]

Someone must have used the Hammer of Dawn.

[tuuu15]

it seemed like ti went from the buttom towards the sky when it blew

[Ikaruszaki]

Electricity is the strangest thing ever

[thisissowrong9]

IMMA FIRING MAH You know the rest.

[minameizmikey]

Mediocre employee?

[thisissowrong9]

@minameizmikey Too right mate.

[JulioV55]

like those guns in the matrix

[Lautima]

Halo 3 much?

[duocult]

who saw this and didn't immediately think, "I wish I could throw that stuff from my hands at will!"

[Drumermaniac2x]

@duocult me... but now i feel bad for it

[xkups]

Holy shit that looks like a plasma ray cannon :D

[tall32guy]

@xkups Because it *is* plasma. :)

[IRELANDSELITE]

power of electricity

[gideony16]

it was kinda mesmerizing till it went BZZRRCH-BANG!!!

[FredrikJor]

I want to tuch it @_@

[AirwarriorX2]

@_@ lol yes i agree but then we go puff .

[jtr10411]

that is called plasma right?

[Blibbles]

It looks like something you'd only see in a movie. What with all the Tesla coils and what not. xD But... I...It just looks... amazing. It is real... I... I'm honestly scared. xD

[FinlandsThunder]

this video pwns a lot of n00bs. epic win.

[Maxito4321]

hey go up the pole and taste the flame and touch it and feel it!!

[sunstoneleo]

MN Nice....

[thewarrior140x]

the problem is made of fuse failyng or fuse in short circuit, 2 options

[Usernameinvalid16]

Hey run up to that metal pole and touch it?

[yourTIV0]

That looks like one of the larger circuit breakers that was initially arcing. Perhaps a short circuit tripped it, and gave such a low resistance that it was allowed to arc across the terminals of the breaker?

[j822bosh]

Notice the BROWN cloud at the end. That is the copper vaporized and burned to copper oxide.

[ignupnow]

wouldnt it be green then?

[OLTCITKA]

Was that really vaporized copper? If it is,it's fascinating to think that metal can be vaporized in an instant...

[eXcRaiNmaN]

only cool shit like this happens here in minnesota

[EmbrunFalcon91]

Ion Cannon Strike from Command and Conquer,  BOOM lmao, Nice vid

[cs512tr]

"Select Target"

...

[fcalvario]

Ha I lIVe By There

[tommy13t]

what caused the explosion at the end?

[cozycampers]

Cross phase (short circuit ) between opposite phases.

[TheDeepFriedBoot]

In simple terms, once those arcs start, they stay going because their path looses the resistance the air offered. It has to do with the electrical resistance of plasma. That arc path touched the other line and in essence, caused a short with it. Nice big high voltage short.

[Kougeru]

I was going to believe you until you spelled "loses" wrong. Second grade word, and it made you LOSE all your validity.

[cbrucker]

That was the current going phase to phase. Once the plasma arc on the botom breaker got to the middle on....1/3 of the difference potential of the total circuit arced...the middle wire dominoed to the top, resulting in a total short.

[Dexerion]

The arc went into the phase wire above it causing a much bigger arc that arced over the entire structure. It wasn't an explosion per say, it was just a much bigger arc. It stopped because something up the line failed and it became de-energized.

[tall32guy]

@tommy13t The electric contacted the line above it, which caused the whole thing to short out and blow.

[Gicahagi10]

Definitely not 230 kV, not even 115 kV. There's not enough clearance between the phases plus the insulators would be a lot larger. I'm thinking somewhere around 40 kV.

[slipknotmaggott666]

the arc connected the two phases and short circuited with an explosion

[littlesirenboy]

god that's scary. how long was the power out

[KiesterKicker]

Pikachu, I CHOOSE YOU!!!!

[Blue10AEMia]

That's one sound you can never forget.

[Exarian]

wait... where did the column of pinkish orange come from... was it just camera glare?

[fryboy11]

That's the heat of the plasma vaporizing the rubber coating on the wire.

[weeardguy]

@ Fryboy11: well no... those wires certainly don't have rubber coating.

[krabykevin]

Yeah definately not rubber coating. that'll be deadly for people underneath.

[Do25mi10ni93k]

i would grill a chicken on this electrical wire xD

[NathanH5]

Low current jacobs ladder, looks cool! But at the end, you see the arc rise up and contact the phase above and then you have full current and a real HOT phase-to-phase arc which a upstream recloser kills. Great video! Added to my favorites.

[denelson83]

That's one big Jacob's ladder.

[fuzzymango209]

holy crap thats intense

[kasperinfo]

230kV?

[techssss]

nice, nice the power of electricity.

[jegoll]

imma firin ma laza at 0: 58

[millerfat]

I think Northfield is a nice little town. The wind turbines there are the first ones I've seen up close. Those things are pretty damn big, huh? Cool video, too.

[sargeantneo]

lol, (pointing to the plasma arc) well there's your problem.

[IgorGiganskiANtiatom]

This is beautiful man thanx for uploading it!

[WhelenVTXR2]

Someone didn't install it right!

"FIRE THE NEWBIE!"

[gotquebec]

you can find everything on youtube

[vblogrsRLzrs]

I believe the 1 phase is shorting to ground through the pole throughout the video, and then at the end the arc connects with the next phase up making a serious fucking short that trips a fuse or breaker up-stream of this tower.

[ampdrage]

actually, if you look it is a switch that has been opened hot, probably due to an overcurrent downstream. so it was a single phase "jumping" the ionized air and continuing to feed down the line. it finally arced two the second phase which is the large explosion.

[poparozi]

If you would have paned down, you would have seen a naked

Arnold Terminator kneeling....

[EagleTalons1]

lol

[bobbj77]

LOL, I`ll be back

[DustinDolby]

Who shot that thing with the hammer of dawn?

[mrelectricity01]

lmao to datson for saying its fake you obviously are not a electrician or linemen. and if you tried to go up there n fix that your not very smart lol big ass arc and you want to go up there and fuck with it ahahah damn i hope none of you work with electricity.

[79Yamato]

Well I hope they DO!

[montanakid07]

lmao lookin at ur name tho ima guessin u r an electrician

[RedneckJamie88]

So your saying it's real?

[stranac1]

what a dumb

[ortafunk]

I Am Not sure what cause the explosion but I think power lines have something that explodes to disconnect the power If there Is a short In the line.

[FacialTurd]

You're fake.

[33399966]

Ya i think your fake too

[RedneckJamie88]

That is the dumbest comment I seen on here.

You fail at life.

[FacialTurd]

: D

[Anthony96922]

you cannot get killed if you have an insulated fuse stick. And when is the fuse gonna blow?

[peterb1968]

It must be a heck of an insultated stick that is high voltage. At least 66 kva and probably more like 128kva

[form109]

the wires and switch contacts are Supported by Insulators....KVA or Kilovolt Amps reffers to the amount of power...Kilovolt is the Proper Term here,this is more likely a 66 or 69 Kilovolt Line.,,,i dont think they even use 128 Kilovolt lines....they do use 115 and 138 KV lines....you can tell this is not one cause the insulators would be longer.

[FuLlMeTaLaLcHeMiSt]

0:59 i'm ah firing mah lazah!!

[buckslanding]

acually i won,t get killed i do this all the tim i work with a electric co if thers a pole fire ill come out and do that

[buckslanding]

id walk up to the ppole and pull the fuse swich the little pole next to the big pole ans stop it

[kimrkarl]

yes do that, and get killed

[linemanbiermann]

@buckslanding wow. good idea. they never thought of that. when them make rubber gloves and you can work tranny hot with with stickin it let me know.

[SodiumCyanide]

i was just waiting for the ionized arc to hit the next phase... then boom!

[fengineer08]

I was suprised when it didnt flash between the other phase... but then it did!

[RyuDarragh]

Oh, forgot to mention, look at the frame at 59:30.1. You can see the simple spark filled column shooting up onto the arc from below.

[BenHutchinson1]

I might be mistaken, but I think what is happening here is the arc rises until it touches another phase, then it shorts the phase creating a LOUD bang (like when I short the charged capacitor in my camera flash with a screwdriver). Then at the same instant a fuse or breaker up the line trips, which stops the arc instantly. The sparks you see are chips of molten metal blasted off the wires by the force of the electric explosion from the short circuit.

[BenHutchinson1]

I do not believe the explosion is an arc suppression cannon. As I already said I believe it is an electrical explosion from the short circuit when the arc crosses the phases. And I also do not believe the sparks seen flying are from the metal "confetti" from the arc suppression cannon. I believe that the electrical explosion already had enough heat and force to accomplish this by melting and blasting away part of the wires or other involved conductors.

[dennismanvids]

I dont think i want to write out the check for the repair bill! What would one of these switches cost brand new? anyway great capture!!

[j6282]

that mustve sucked

[LRMNmeyer]

Woot MN. That was cool, must have been epic to see it in person.

[MIKEPREAMP]

Don't just stand there! Call 911!

[Knifymoloko]

Awesome explosion.

[form109]

maybe one of the switches is open slightly allowing arcing.

[jerkorna4]

holy crap the arcing hit the other powerline dude thats bad

[RyuDarragh]

Oh, aasmith48161, that's a manual disconnector at a junction. The arc indicates a failure of one or the other phase disconnectors. If it were the breaker that had failed, they could just open the lines altogether. See the metal rods on the sides of the pole? They're usually set in pairs so they can disconnect either down stream load. See them all over PA where I live. For more fun, do a search for "13Kv" and look at one where the 34KV lines shorted into the local 13KV grid. Much (expensive) fun.

[RyuDarragh]

This was multiple shots from an ArcStop canon that uses an explosive charge to fire semi conductive flakes into an arc so that the arc will flow through the powder for a fraction of a second. The arc is extinguished becuase the powder conducts only while *hot* and the force of the blast blows it out quickly. That was not a fire, but an arc over at a junction between a 69KV line and a branch circuit. The bit at the junction you see is a disconnector.

[BenHutchinson1]

What is the advantage of having the arc flow through a conductive powder?

[RyuDarragh]

It forces the arc to get *longer* because it has to jump from speck to speck (it's more like metallic confetti). A longer arc is easier to blow out. It's fired from something that looks like a mortar as you do *not* want to be near it when it hits the arc :P

[BenHutchinson1]

By "not want to be near it", are you refering to the metalic power launcher? or are you refering to the blower that blows air on the arc afterwards to blow the arc out?

And by not wanting to be near it, do you mean because it makes a VERY LOUD noise?

And in this video it looked like there wasn't any safety device. In the end the arc rose up to the line of the other phase, and on contact created a short circuit, and I think the smoke and sparks is from melting and vaporizing metal wires.

[RyuDarragh]

The arc happens because the lines are unbalanced, but the reasons you don't want to be near the arc supressor mortar are more than the ones you hit on (loud and very hot.. it's an *explosion*, after all :P), but because that column is also *conductive*. You notice how thw whole column glowed pink and blue? You might get fried by the stray voltage arcing to ground. The arc stop also does double duty both diverting voltage and blowing the arc out.

[BenHutchinson1]

When you say "near" it, do you mean for example that the guy with the camera here was too "near" it? Because while the explosion would be loud from where he was, he wasn't close enough to get fried (which would have to be right up on the pole near the arc).

[riotpack]

clean your power lines guys that dirty dirty power brownout broke my microwave oven - Ill teabag the lot of u

[JW69Stryker]

lol teabag them.

[English2Elvish]

Ohhhh, thats not good :P

[Andis345]

Man, those electrons are stubborn. They just wont go to ground quick enough!!

[aasmith48161]

damn!!! pole top switches always make me nervous, if the vac bottles didnt work why was the switch left open rather then just closing it? Then again if it was motor operated i wouldnt run back to the controls to close it either. Amazing either way.

[Veraeikon]

esas protecciones estan chimbas

[sparky480volts]

at 1:17 seconds into the burn something comes up from the ground to interfier with the electrical jumping. what is it?

[FreeTalkLive]

Flash Gordon?

I always heard that electricity flowed from - to +. I know thats AC voltage, but maybe it has something to do with it.

Could be some unknown shit too.

[carpetmonk]

see it jump up from the ground? mmm ionized gas.. wish i could have smelt it.

[gerlirap]

nose no lo puedo verr

[zumbc]

lol

[brettsmomone]

lol

[desertman194]

hadoken!

[JW69Stryker]

LOL HADOKEN!!

[outsideelectrician]

lol, i was waiting on it to go phase to phase.

[Valonaren]

WOW!

[f45ball]

when companies dont maintain equipment such as reclosers, this happens. Atleast in MD that would have triped instantly then reclosed back in 8 seconds later. It would do that 2 more times and the third time it would lock out. But with electric, the key to remember is, its all relative theory. Noone really knows whats going to happen, just go from what has worked in the past ...and repeat

[mysubsbang]

hey i live in forest lake mn. just a few miles from the hugo devastation.

[domenriono]

it costs money but it looks as cool as hell

[Jetli390]

That looks like that bang from super smash bros. when ever a character falls off the stage.

[TheDEMONLORD22]

Thats called Arcing not a fire

[bigbarge1]

circuit breakers or reclsoers for high voltage dos not react fast

[micahcrawshaw]

Don't you have High voltage circuit breakers or reclosers? In New Zealand, the circuit breakers or reclsoers would have picked that up and tripped, then sent a message to the control room that there was a fault. That looks... unsafe

[DgenerationX12345]

That looks so friken cool!

[nopiluvin]

In MN. We don't care. We got better fires then that at night that we cook our smores in! =P

[woodyoutwo]

thats fucking insane... MN fucking rules!! holla holla

[yostick26]

holla

[ihatethecops]

holla holla

[Msdos4]

get dolla

[jeabo0adhd]

its not that bad, main hv switches do that

[Nf0rc3r12]

MN Rocks!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[HanakoFairhall]

Good grief! Why don't they turn them off when things like this happen? I remember seeing a news story about a burning transformer with people trapped in a nearby building, and they didn't turn it off for 45 minutes, any computer system ought to be able to tell them that something's gone wrong, and that's a transformer! All they had to do was turn off something at a substation!

[samlikescoasters]

it's really not that simple you would shut down power to a lot of people.

[HanakoFairhall]

With Hospitals and police Stations I can understand them wanting to give a person time for that, but where I come from, they usually cut the power pretty quickly in cases like that, I was willing to wait 5 hours in the dark when a transformer blew.

[vinny142]

If the system is designed to be redundant in case of powerlines breaking etc then turning off the power could involve shutting down multiple substations in which case the powerguys have to physically travel to them, which takes time. And ofcourse you don't want to rush opening or closing a switch that has a gagillion framillion pagillion watts flowing though it. :)

[HanakoFairhall]

With all the technology we have today, there's no way for these companies to shut something off remotely? It doesn't have to be done by removing a prong or activating a switch, they can just cut the power that feeds the substation, were they really so bent on making as much money as possible from peoples' homes and offices that they kept feeding energy to a substation that was on fire???

[thebestofall007]

back to the future!!!!

[Pashune]

Lots of arcing... ;D

[troshs]

its really bad but isnt seeing it in real life just amazing?

[LinemanJourneyman24]

If its a new line like you say, thats probably caused from someone not tightning something up good enough

[simsonmotorader]

can you get like super powers if you touch that thing ????

[Daniel55556]

lol:)

[evilcarlos]

It looks like relaying finally took it out when it went phase to phase.

[grande18]

completely....fucking....awsom­e..........

[shakhtarfan21]

take a hose and spray it with water

[kizza231188]

ahahahhahaha

[westham10]

lol

[stinam481]

plasma!!! Get you some of that forth state of matter!!