bumping this back up..

Quote
The panel cover was on at the time of the fire. All of the individual breakers in the panel tripped, but the main outside did not. The panel was still energized from the night of the fire, back in March.

With the amount of damage inside this panel and the almost totally undamaged condition of the feeder and romexes ouside the panel can, I wondering what the heck happened to this panel?

One of two things comes to mind:

1: The COVER was on, but the door was open, allowing open flame to melt breakers and damage the interior; or:

2: Excessive heat caused multiple faults within the panel itself, causing all this damage. There was some arcing and fault current damage involved here, based on the pic.

I'm also very surprised that the main never tripped and that it was allowed to stay energized for so long.

Some time ago I posted the thought that I would like to start an "electrical forensics" type of service, where damage like this is explained in detail. [Linked Image]

This whole scenario would be a good one to look at in depth.

edited to add:

HCE727: If that panel and breakers are still around, I'd be willing to pay shipping for you to send it to me so I can look at it in more detail. email me at my PM ...Thanks!!

[This message has been edited by mxslick (edited 07-22-2006).]

Stupid should be painful.