I find that to be true of most news stories. Reporters seldom actually understand what they are writing about and they just use sensational language that sells the media they are reporting for.
The flip side of that is most firemen are not electricians or electronic techs so in a lot of cases simply calling a fire "electrical" is short hand for "we are not sure what caused it but we found some burned up electrical stuff near the source of ignition".
Maybe we need more guys like Mike on the FD?
I feel your pain, Greg.
Things are pretty fractured when it comes to getting REAL news these days.
I refuse to make any media statements whatso-ever to the media, I leave that to our Chief Fire Officer, mainly because at the end of the day, the media will twist and turn anything that you DO say to their own ends, if it will sell a few extra hundred papers.
Been there before, not my style.
Having said that, we took 3 crews of the local fire brigade out, when I was with the PoCo, and taught the lot of them about the dangers of electricity (LV. HV and use in houses).
Also what can cause a fire in a house.
Our last house-burn took this into account, where-as the power would normally have been cut from the place, days before the "burn" occurred, we tried out over-fusing, with 30A wire in a lighting circuit, looping off a range circuit (32A) to a power point supplying 3 2kW heaters.
We also tried out some dodgy CB's as well, they never tripped at all.
So we all learned a thing or two that day.
And good lord, did we have fun.
