Absolutely amazing nobody was killed. I wonder what the conversation was like on the bus keeping folks in while there was fire encroaching. Even if you don't touch the conductors, potential gradient can ruin your day.
I don't know anything about urban fire fighting. It seems like the primary block to rescuing the civilians is that the power is still on, and they had to wait for the power to be off. That makes me think that firefighters, if they can't already, should be able to either 1) turn off power on site, or 2) easily contact someone who can do so remotely.
Why are these local power lines up in the air on such low poles? Shouldn't they be buried when in an urban environment? I've only ever seen power lines up in the air when crossing open country, and then 50m or so up in the air.
> Switching to manual mode the doors at the fire station are opened, but they discover they can’t get their equipment out because the power lines are across the apron of the fire station.<p>Why couldn't the fire trucks just drive over the wires? They'd be insulated, no?
Is it not possible to design power lines in such a way that voltage is cut off automatically in case they touch the ground or some other object? You can check for arcing or abnormal spikes in current. Or loss of voltage on the other end. Should be easy to do on the ends of the line, at the sub station.
I just walked past a SJ fire station with my dog yesterday, and had a nice visit with a firefighter sitting outside. I'll have to ask them about this next time I see one.<p>This station doesn't have a backdoor, I don't think.
Question that sprung to mind, especially with the Dixie fire continue to rage- how did PG&E not know there was something seriously wrong with their equipment and shut off power remotely? That’s an honest question- the electrical system is big, complex, and often was built before I was born, but it seems like that sort of failure is something that would show up on a sensor somewhere.