Jim Phillips (brainfiller) wrote:
Gary, I was waiting for the same thing, the big "Hollywood" finale. The water hose with an electrical fire is always in interesting combination. We'll assume someone de-energized this but I'm not really sure.
I've heard of insulators being cleaned by a power washer on ENERGIZED high voltage lines by using a special nozzle that interrupted the stream and grounding the nozzle (rumor was it took a brave volunteer the first time). It is possible the fire departments have such nozzles, as that could be a common hazard on burning buildings with energized conductors, though it did look like a continuous stream.
Another thought is the flame might have been providing the conductor path (ionized gas is a good conductor, don't build campfires under low power lines). As soon as it flame was cooled that might have removed the short circuit. That is a bit of a stretch.
