Electrical Arcing from Primary Line Causes Fire at WINGS Resale Shop that Destroys Building

http://arlingtoncardinal.com/2010/06/18/spectacular-fire-at-wings-resale-stor...

Arcing on the north side of a truss roof building ignites the roof. Notice late in the video that the arcing at the north wall causes sparking and arcing along the gutter of the whole east side of the building. First sparking gutter caught on video just after 6:26 and then easier to see at 8:50 and following to the end of the video. A very dangerous situation with electrocution risk and building/roof collapse risk.

Reports heard on Friday that the call center at Com Ed was not fully functioning due to a storm-related problem at the time of the WINGS fire.

See the full story at The Cardinal ...
http://arlingtoncardinal.com/2010/06/18/spectacular-fire-at-wings-resale-stor...

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• electrical arcing
• electric arc
• primary line
• power line
• electricity
• thunderstorm
• building fire
• arc ignition
• roof ignition
• major fire
• Palatine Fire Department

[Arlingtoncards]

ComEd was in high demand because of a storm that just passed through. If I remember correctly, ComEd also had a problem with power or communications at their command center because of the storm. I know there have been meetings between fire dept. administrators and ComEd. Hopefully they've worked on some sort of rapid response team from ComEd that could be requested by fire depts. via rapid access communications. Rapid cutoff is best kept as ComEd's responsibility. It's their grid & specialty.

[Laikmuay]

@smurfboywv Lol I don't think its smart to hose down an electrical fire. They were probably waiting for the power to be shutoff before they could do anything.

[tjfreak]

Fantastic footage...I heard it was elec. ignition, to see & hear it is awesome..nice work capturing this..I can see in the furthest left window at 8:04 the shelving where the used audio/visual stuff was / is melting.. I was going to go there an hour or so just b4 this happened...I was passing by..figured I'll come back later..These fire fighters played it by the book.Closed off the area, evaluated & extinguished. No one hurt ! Wings is up & running by Rand & Dundee 6 months later.

[Th3Hunk3yProductorZ]

I was there!

[smurfboywv]

@Laikmuay True, but there's stuff that can be sprayed on electrical fires. The city should be responsible for replacing this business.

[ElectronNeutrino]

I have to say, I'm impressed that the firefighters thought to leave someone in a truck and let them use the truck mounted cannon to attempt to control the fire. I can't think of any significant risk as long as everyone else gets away from the truck. And Mysynthesis, they can close breakers at substations remotely. The problem, as I understand it, is that those breakers would drop a large area (possibly including hospitals) whereas the manual pole-mount disconnects can be more specific.

[WiredrawnMurder45]

@dcave74 Not that simple. The ground roughly 250ft around the downed wire is still charged and would have carried the electricity well into the building.

[tall32guy]

It's really unfair and stinky too, considering what Wings Resale is and what they stand for.

[tall32guy]

God bless those firemen though that they risked the electricity getting them, to try to fight down that fire and help the owners of the building have less damage and less to deal with. <3

[tall32guy]

@floridaskater07 They have to. They are NOT allowed to do anything to put out the fire until the power is disconnected so that they do not endanger themselves.

[tall32guy]

Hope these guys had good insurance. LOL I would make sure that burning by electricity was covered in my insurance if I got a business. LOL

[1966v8mustang]

i would think they would put some kind of breaker/fuse on like every 5th pole so they can kill the power if needed

[steve45601yt]

At first I wondered why the firefighters were laying so far back...appearing to be doing nothing. Then toward the end of the video you can see why. The ENTIRE building is electrified. Very strange to see such a large building behave like that. Good training video.