txaggie84
Member
- Location
- Chattanooga, TN
I investigated a house fire yesterday that appears to have originated in the breaker panel. When the occupants went outside after being awakened by their smoke alarm they noticed sparks in the nearby trees that their service feed was routed through. When I looked at the feed I saw that a hot leg and the neutral leg were severed in two seperate locations, 27' and 90' from the transformer. The breaker panel was heavily damaged leaving the main breaker in such a condition that I cannot determine its final position. One of the load side connectors on the meter base was also heavily damaged. Now for the $50 question - could a problem in the meter base or service panel overload the line enough to melt the insulation or did a fault occur in the trees shorting a hot leg to neutral and creating an energized neutral in the breaker panel?
The money's on the latter scenario
Thank you
The money's on the latter scenario
Thank you