Logging Truck vs. 7200 Volts

[Wingfoot]

This happened Wednesday 23 July 2008 by the airport in Jackson, Tennessee.



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Closer photo inspection reveals the culprit of this logging truck's demise. It is a woven wire rope cable with a hook on the end latched on to a high voltage distribution power line:



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Look at the nice nice red glow from the middle of the logs. Of course, maybe these logs that are not charred too bad will be milled down to 2 x 4s. Talk about "Kiln-dried!" Maybe these logs are only good for making charcoal briquettes:



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You can see the end off the cable connected to the small hand winch on the front of the first bulkhead. The driver would have thrown the cable and stepped back. I can vision the operator using the big 'wing it over' with a "let go", the sound of cracking electricity, a big "kaBLOOWIE", and then him running like hell. That's most likely the reason this truck operator survived:



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Have you never seen a tire fire? All that's needed is a one inch section of a tire ignited and the rest will burn. It would probably take that much current (7200 volts) 1 second to get that one inch of tire section burning. Multiply that times 18 tires! Tire fires are hot. Often fire departments can not put out scrap tire pile fires. So a few duals get lit up, the aluminum fuel tanks boil over, and that's the end for Mr. Logging Truck! A good example is this image about 2 seconds after the stinger touched a high voltage overhead power line:



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A fairly successful owner/operator that is still in the log trucking business sez this situation doesn't pass the smell test. His thinks this trucker had been scouting this parking place for some time while practicing his throw. This could be a way out in a bad economy with sky-high fuel prices:



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A person would think that rubber tires would insulate highway vehicles from electrical shock. Not so with today's auto/truck tires and tubes.

Years ago highway vehicles would build static electricity by rolling down improved roads on tires made with large amounts of natural rubber. Stepping out while touching these vehicles, or touching these vehicles just off the highway would produce an irritating and non-lethal static shock. Many vehicles used static straps or short dragging chains to drain static charge buildups.

Tire manufactures since have developed synthetic rubber tires and tubes that use rubber polymers that are conductors of electricity. Now tires are a direct ground from the wheels to the earth and drain all potential static electricity build-up. That's the reason lightning strikes can occur on today's rubber tired vehicles and high voltage electric charges can create these instantaneous disastrous results.

[phoenix827]

I agree with the "smell test" The other thing that doesn't fit is the outer logs still have unburned bark while the center ones are still burning? I don't think so!