"Once the wire drops to the ground, it bounces around...Every time it strikes the ground, there's a big white flash...The building became energized...The energy was beyond the current capacity of the wires. That developed into a massive fire..."

Link to news story:
http://www.northjersey.com/page.php...eTYzNTcyMDQmeXJpcnk3ZjcxN2Y3dnFlZUVFeXkz

ThinkGood,
The article doesn't actually say what voltage is involved with this incident.
I would hazard a guess and say it was pretty high, if the wire was jumping up and down on the ground.
Mind you, I attended a car accident a few years ago, where a pole fell over onto a house and set the roof on fire, but this was with 3.3kV, Corrugated Iron roof, bitumen based Building Paper underneath!, for some odd reason, this "job" sticks in my mind.
Oh, that's right, I fell through the ceiling, wearing full kit and Breathing Apparatus.
Shame, Shame, Shame.

I looked for any updates on this story...

The paper still has not reported on the cause of the downed wire (apparently, the POCO is still investigating that one).

Perhaps the answer to "how much voltage" could be "enough to start a fire..."

There was an overhead photo in the paper, showing basically charred remains of a large, rectangular structure.

Fortunately, nobody was injured!

EDIT:

P. S. If I'm not mistaken, there was a fire in Paterson, NJ, some time ago in which firefighters fell through the roof. The result was fatal.

[This message has been edited by ThinkGood (edited 03-27-2003).]

ThinkGood,
What I was talking about was a straight 8 foot drop to the floor below, fall through any sort of roof and you are history.
By the way, the average BA set wieghs 20kg+
Bunker coat(12kg wet)+ splash-pants(10kg wet)+ gumboots(4kg dry).
Older type BA cylinders used to wiegh 25kg by themselves!.
And you have to be able to run at full speed in all this clobber, who the hell would want to be a FireFighter?.
We do it for love I think!.