California’s deadliest wildfire started with a electrical transmission tower    - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: DougSpindler
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 20, 2020, 01:15:51 pm
content: How California’s power companies balance cost of inspection and repair of transmission line vs. human life/property and profits and bonuses for executives. The executives received their bonuses, 85 people died with billions of property damage.Town of Paradise which was totally devastated few years ago is threatened by fire again with the current fires.Tube Time (@TubeTimeUS) Tweeted:This electrical transmission tower has a little problem. can you spot it? actually, it's not a small problem--it cost us 16.65 *billion* dollars and caused the deaths of 85 people.Take a look at the pictures of the transmission tower.https://twitter.com/TubeTimeUS/status/1306362075044667392

author: zenerbjt
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: September 20, 2020, 09:34:04 pm
content: wow, great post, it looks like the high voltage wires are almost against the metal tower.Youd think theyd have cameras on these things ...for remote inspection.

author: DougSpindler
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 20, 2020, 11:42:06 pm
content: Quote from: zenerbjt on September 20, 2020, 09:34:04 pmI'm taking a wild guess here, but I think PG&E must have will over a million of these towers. These are 500kV lines. I can't tell, but I think each tower has 6 to 12 of these hooks. So there must be 12 million or so of these hooks. PG&E's transmission lines run for Washington, through Oregon and Arizona to New Mexico. (Might include Nevada.) They would need to use drones. I doubt a drone could spot the wear or cracks.One can clearly see how the wind has made the hole where the hook should be an oval. We are told these towners can be over 100 years old. Should not be an issue as the Eifel tower is older. The just require maintenance. There are two different "Fire in Paradise" videos. One is on YouTube, link posted and the other is on Netfilx. It's interesting if you listen to the first calls to emergency services dispatch about reports of the fire say something like they will notify PG&E making is sound like PG&E HV lines start fire fairly often. This make me think PG&E operates on a break/fix bases. The hook breaks, a fire starts so they know it needs to be fixed. Many of these towers are in remote mountainous areas requiring the use of a helicopter for access. I would think it would take 20 -50 years of wind and the elements before it would break.The break fix model must have been working for PG&E for over 100 years. But with man caused climate change the improper forest management there's a lot more fuel for the fires so they are getting out of hand a lot faster than ever before.Glad you found it interesting.

author: IanB
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 21, 2020, 12:00:50 am
content: I read claims that some of these towers are nearly 100 years old. I have trouble with this. Did they really have 500 kV transmission lines 100 years ago? I rather doubt it. If the insulators and mounting brackets are really 100 years old, then this would seem to be malfeasance on a grand scale. It doesn't matter how many towers there are, a regular program of inspection, replacement, and renewal on a rotating basis every year would cover any number of towers over a 100 year interval. Anyone who says "We haven't had the resources to inspect this tower for the last 100 years" is talking bullshit.

author: DougSpindler
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 21, 2020, 12:11:14 am
content: Quote from: IanB on September 21, 2020, 12:00:50 amI think the towers are 100 years old as you can see square head bolts in the pictures. The original mount for the hook was worn and a retro-fit was made using hex head bolts. PG&E has only has maintenance records for the past 20 years. (Hard to believe they don't have more.) But remember even though the metal mount is worn, it was the hook that snapped.

author: CatalinaWOW
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 21, 2020, 12:22:00 am
content: Quote from: DougSpindler on September 20, 2020, 11:42:06 pmIn addition to my skepticism about the age of these towers, surely "a million" is a hyperbolic exaggeration, a way to say a whole bunch. Certainly not a basis for math on, particularly using the largest estimate for the number of hooks.California can be be loosely approximated by a rectangle 1000 miles by 500 miles (I know it is really quite a bit smaller than this, but bear with me). If transmission lines had towers every 0.05 mile along the 1000 mile length of the long side it would take 20,000 towers. A million towers would then be enough to run 50 of these lines. Or one every ten miles. If the 500 kV grid in California were that dense there would never be any problems distributing power anywhere in the state.So probably an order of magnitude or more fewer towers in the system. And possibly the oldest tower in the system is nearing 100 years old. But I would be willing to bet that the average age of the system is significantly less than half of that.My comment is that if people on this forum, engineers and technicians for the most part can throw numbers around with wild abandon like that is it any wonder that utility commissions, corporate boards, insurance companies and local regulators have trouble placing sensible programs in place? Once you don't understand or don't trust the numbers any decision is suspect.

author: CatalinaWOW
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 21, 2020, 12:30:05 am
content: Quote from: DougSpindler on September 21, 2020, 12:11:14 amThe major transition from square to hex nuts and bolts occurred around WWII (a long time ago, but lots less than 100 years). And according to several on line sources square nuts remain the standard for power line use to this day (at least some places here in the US). I have no idea why that is. Maybe a linesman can provide the answer. The square nuts are very weak evidence for 100 year age.

author: DougSpindler
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 21, 2020, 12:37:07 am
content: I'm taking a wild guess on my numbers. The towers can be three side by side Maye for redundancy? And there's not just one line N-S, E-W. The are more like highways heading in different directions. PG&E's towers are also in WA, OR, AZ, NM and I think NV. Even if the towers are 100 year old, there should be nothing wrong with them. Unless they are rusted. It was the hook on the insulator that failed from the physical action of the wind. I hope someone who knows more about metal fatigue can tell us more.

author: CatalinaWOW
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 21, 2020, 12:38:08 am
content: The linked document describes some history of transmission lines in the US, some of the economics involved and some of the regulatory issues. Probably a fair start on self education.https://www.energy.gov/sites/prod/files/oeprod/DocumentsandMedia/primer.pdf

author: CatalinaWOW
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 21, 2020, 12:47:42 am
content: Quote from: DougSpindler on September 21, 2020, 12:37:07 amMy Gedankenexperiment just says that a million towers provides 50,000 miles of transmission line, more or less (pole spacing can change those numbers by a factor of two or more). Route them N, S, E, W or along highways. That is an incredible number of miles of 500 kV line. One on line source I grabbed suggests that 500 kV line costs roughly a million dollars a mile to install. So 50,000 miles would represent a 50 billion dollar investment. Pick a reasonably small percentage of installation cost to represent annual maintenance costs and you see why maintenance is hard to fund.By the way, my only involvement in the power industry was as an intern during university 50 years ago, and as a consumer. But Google can find you a lot of information quickly. I believe the document I referenced in a prior post gives a number for the total miles of high voltage transmission lines in the US. I am sure that a few minutes of Google could get that number for PG&E.

author: DougSpindler
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 21, 2020, 12:55:55 am
content: Quote from: CatalinaWOW on September 21, 2020, 12:38:08 amThanks for the post. Interesting read.About 8 years ago I took a one day class on the history of electrical power in California to the "smart-grid It was very interesting. It all began with towns wanting a few street lights at night so they purchased a generator. Neighboring cities realized if they connected there lines together they could share generators and have fault tolerance. Thus turned into 80 different power companies. As for the smart grid it's an issue of who is going to pay for it? You are not going to toss out 100 years of equipment that's working fine. They estimate 50 to 100 years.

author: DougSpindler
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 21, 2020, 01:01:57 am
content: Quote from: CatalinaWOW on September 21, 2020, 12:47:42 amI can easly see 1 million dollars a mile if not more. In the Sierra Nevada mountains they would have had to clear the trees. The towers I have watched only way they can get them in is with a helicopter. A lot of these towers are in very remote places in the mountains. Like building the the transcendental railroad through the Sierras its' a marvel of engineering.

author: wilfred
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 21, 2020, 01:13:19 am
content: Quote from: DougSpindler on September 20, 2020, 01:15:51 pmDue to some government policy changes related to reliability (or percieved lack thereof which led to blackouts and bushfires) the power grid in Australia received a massive investment as a result. It has come to be widely regarded as "gold plating". It is easy to simply shift blame to the power company executives but it is a balance between what people say they want and what they are actually prepared to pay for. The resulting higher electricity prices from this investment has also driven a massive uptake of solar home installations. And endless public debate about high electricity prices.If I go to my primary news source abc.net.au/news and search on "gold plating" I get a good history of the situation. Starting with this one.https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-03-25/grattan-urges-consumers-to-be-compensation-for-energy-grid-22g/9585284Just yesterday I saw a report of a windfarm that was blamed for starting a bushfire as a result of a bird shorting across an insulator to ground and falling in flames to the dry grass at the base of the HV pole. Yes the company should have foreseen the risk and placed insulated covers on the live contact on the top of the insulator to prevent this accident, and cleared flammable grass from the base. Now they have.Based on what happens in Australia I can infer Californians also don't really want to be paying for completely reliable and safe transmission grids. Until a disaster happens it is cheap electricity that is front of mind.

author: m3vuv
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 02, 2020, 05:33:20 pm
content: Its the same old story,i "it all makes perfect sense when looked at in pounds shillings and pence",its a fact of the times we live in!!

author: Marco
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 02, 2020, 08:43:16 pm
content: Meh ... fires will happen.Make the urban areas defensible and let it burn, problem solved.

author: DougSpindler
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 02, 2020, 09:20:46 pm
content: Quote from: Marco on October 02, 2020, 08:43:16 pmThese fires are jumping 8 and 10 lane highways in urban areas. That's a fire break of 50 meters or 165 feet.You make it sound as if it's an easy problem to solve. How would YOU do it?

author: Marco
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 02, 2020, 09:49:44 pm
content: Quote from: DougSpindler on October 02, 2020, 09:20:46 pmMassive fire breaks around every urban area, in expensive areas with some manicured forests for visuals between the populated area and the firebreak which can't sustain crown fires and where firefighting is easy. Then burn the rest and keep burning it every couple decades.It needs to all burn, the margin from controlled to uncontrolled is razor thin at the moment. The tiny fuel breaks they can afford to make for a controlled burn are insufficient. Once forests are a little closer in make up to 100 years ago everything will be a lot more controllable.

author: james_s
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 02, 2020, 10:33:03 pm
content: I have mixed thoughts on this. On one hand, yeah, it sucks when a massive fire starts due to a power line, however fires start from all sorts of things, lightning and human negligence (on an individual scale) are I believe the most common cause of wildfires. As far as the power lines and maintenance, hindsight is 20:20 and after an accident occurs it's easy to look back and say they should have replaced this or that or changed the design or whatever but ultimately who is going to pay for it? What amount of money is reasonable for what amount of risk reduction? Because you can spend an infinite amount of money and the risk will never be zero. I suspect most people would balk at paying 2x-3x as much per kWh for electricity, even if those same people are asking why the infrastructure was not replaced prior to the accident. Fact of the matter is there are Trillions of dollars of infrastructure across the USA that is in dire need of repairs or replacement and all of that costs money and takes time which are finite resources.I tend to think we should accept that ignition sources exist, and be more proactive about harvesting portions of the forests to create fire breaks. Clear out dead brush and trees, and other highly flammable items, especially around likely sources of ignition like transmission lines. All that is also easier said than done given the scale of things, but fire is a natural part of the ecosystem and if we suppress fire as we have, fuel continues to accumulate unless we also actively work to clear that out too.

author: DougSpindler
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 02, 2020, 11:30:31 pm
content: All of this sounds wonderful. We are doing almost everything you have suggested. You are leaving out two key pieces of information. The power company executives by deferring maintenance have received millions of dollars in bonuses and giving a nice dividend to share holders.Fires started by broken parts on transmission towers are not that uncommon. For decades the power lines start the fire and if it can be proved the powerlines started the fire they pay the fine. Far more cost effective than trying to inspect and maintain the power lines.You are mixing forest fires with brush fires and urban fire storms. When the white Europeans arrived in California they brought non-native trees with them and planted them like crazy. These non-native trees and grasses have changed California's environment. Many of these non-native trees are highly flammable and burn hotter than the native species. Then the white's thought the Native Peoples were unintelligent savages by starting fires. The whites put an end to it. To then the west had natural resources God put here for them to pillage and plunder the West from the Native People.We have fire breaks. If you have ever seen a late summer forest, brush or urban fire when the last rain was 7 months ago and the winds kick-in you would see how useless fire breaks can be. The fire storm rains down burning embers a mile or more in advance of the actual fire. For your proposed plans to work you would need fire breaks 5 to 10 miles wide. But even then, with the winds that's probably not enough. Then you need to factor in California's mountainous landscape.The Paradise fire jumped 10 miles when it started. And yes the trees were trimmed and there were fire breaks.Next idea?

author: Marco
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 03, 2020, 12:37:48 am
content: Quote from: DougSpindler on October 02, 2020, 11:30:31 pmIf you aren't dedicating man power to halt fires in densely wooded areas and don't have to evacuate from an approaching crown fire which can put an entire street in flames without using embers at all, then the embers are more manageable.Paradise community village was build right next to the forest ... no embers needed, houses would catch fire from simple radiant heat eventually.

author: DougSpindler
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 03, 2020, 12:57:25 am
content: Quote from: Marco on October 03, 2020, 12:37:48 amWe do let the highly flammable area burn but the problem is the burning embers rain down in the urban areas creating lots of spot fires. With limited man power not all the spot fires can be extinguished AND you have jest created two additional problems.When you let an ares burn, it burns with such intensity it sterilizes the soil. Nothing will grow for years if not more than a decade. AND, with nothing growing there are no root systems to stabilize the soil and you have mudslides. These massive mudslide that change the ecology of the streams. The ocean fish which swim upstream to spawn no longer have the stream to spawn in and do not reproduce. If the fish don’t reproduce they disrupt the food chain down stream and in the ocean.Right now we choose to reward the executives at the power company with millions of dollars for giving stock holders a good return on their investment? How did they do that? The don’t do the required maintain effective and pay the fines for starting fires.

author: Marco
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 03, 2020, 01:07:31 am
content: Quote from: DougSpindler on October 03, 2020, 12:57:25 amEvacuation massively limits manpower. Embers from a mile away are not the situation which necessitates evacuation, it's the eventual forest fire 100 feet away which does (or in the case of Paradise community village 10 feet).QuoteYou can only clear the underbrush for a tiny piece, everything else will burn eventually ... and it will burn in large amounts. The size and intensity of fires will not reduce until the forest structure changes.Urban areas can be either defensible or not, those are the only choices available. Paradise community village was not.

author: DougSpindler
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 03, 2020, 01:45:40 am
content: Macro where are you getting your information about the Paradise fire? That fire was 10 miles away across a canyon when it was first reported. Fires started by transmission lines are not uncommon. Nobody paid much attention to it. In no time it was in Paradise. This surprised everyone. How could a fire 10 miles away burn across a canyon and burn the town. Need to fact check, but I think it was 30 minutes.These are small fires which quickly turn into firestorms which burn with such intensity everything burned. Clearing the brush only helps when the fire it’s small. Once these fires get going the brush doesn’t matter. With no rain, and 100+ degree days everything is highly combustible. Especially the non-native plants and trees.

author: DougSpindler
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 03, 2020, 03:05:57 am
content: This was just tweeted by the local fire department. Take a look at the firestorm winds. They can reach hurricane speed blowing burning embers.https://twitter.com/OaklandFireLive/status/1312060836257558528?s=20

author: Marco
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 03, 2020, 05:08:57 am
content: Quote from: DougSpindler on October 03, 2020, 01:45:40 amSimply looking at pictures of the town, that town was completely indefensible.QuoteYes, that's my point ... you can't keep it small, maintenance can not solve the problem at this point. Neither of powerlines, nor of the forests at large. It will go big, it will go fast, it will happen. All you can do is make the towns defensible, isolate them from the forest and let the forest structure change in the only possible way. Then you can do controlled burns to keep it that way, when control is possible again.Paradise community village was living on borrowed time.QuoteBut not everything can have a crown fire.

author: DougSpindler
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 03, 2020, 10:00:00 am
content: The terrain here makes that nearly impossible and we certainly do not have the money to make that happen statewide. Between the Forest service and the Sierra Club mismanaging our forests and man caused climate change altering our weather which has killed off a lot of plant material creating an enormous source of fuel and man introducing non-Nate species which have lots of oils making them highly combustible we will continue to have these fires.These non-native species of trees planted over 100 years ago are really bad. People trying to make a fast buck planted millions of these trees in our state. The city where I live has been trying for 65 years to eradicate these trees. In spite of many efforts to cut down the trees, and major fires ever 5 years they grow back. Each fire re-establishes them as they grow faster, provide more fuel and choke out native species which can tolerate the fires.These defense spaces in urban areas once created provide the perfect setting for fast growing non-native species in just a few years making things much worse.With all of these fires which have burned so hot the soil has been sterilized it will be interning to see what species will move in.

author: radzimir
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: October 03, 2020, 10:02:45 am
content: My 2-cents: plant growth increased through CO2 fertilizing effect but at the same time so called environmental activists do everything to "save the plants", so they produce thousands of municipal and country level regulations forbidding cutting all the growth to save levels.The same was in Australia, where there was illegal to cut trees around your house, so they burned down, who did id illegally saved a house but must face punishment by law.So, if Comifornia burns, so be it, they need it to learn the hard way.To Moderators: it is not my intention to make any "political" posts here, but the whole subject doesn't make sens without balanced approach.

author: DougSpindler
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 03, 2020, 10:20:40 am
content: This is a bit of a twisted story, but it all comes down to money. It wasn’t so much local government as it was political “green” activists just happed to own a lot of forest land who influenced federal politicians to pass laws that screwed us while allowing the activists to make millions in profits off their forest land while at the same time saying what they are doing is good for the environment.Take a look at the Sierra Club and Green Peace. Both orgs stated out with “good” intentions and then were hi-jacked by some lawyers/businessman who saw a way to make millions of the land they say they are protecting as they accept donations from good people thinking they are giving money to orgs which are preserving the land.We have leaders which say one thing, and then do something else which is in their best interest. How many times have we seen that happen over the course of history?

author: tom66
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 03, 2020, 01:40:28 pm
content: How much of the fire damage is related to the common mostly-timber build of American homes? Fire spread between adjacent buildings in the UK is limited in part due to brick and cinder construction. In house fires in the UK, it tends to be the interior and contents of the home that combusts, rather than the building exterior. In fact there are homes that have experienced uncontained gas fires and burned for hours and the frame of the building still stands.I can't help but think that if homes were constructed of a material that does not readily combust then the rate of fire spread through a town would be reduced - even if poor forest management led to the fire reaching the town in the first place. At the very least it may give people longer to evacuate safely.

author: DougSpindler
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 03, 2020, 03:25:10 pm
content: It’s all about the raw materials. Correct me if I’m wrong, but wasn’t much of the construction in England made out of wood? That is until you cut down all of the trees. Seems to my it London had it’s share of fires including the great one.Seems to me brick construction in the UK is something that’s fairly recent. Possibly post WWII?It’s very rare to find a house made out of bricks anywhere on the west coast. As Mark Twain gave said it his weather report, Skies are clear, temperature is mild and there’s a 100% chance of brick falling after the San Francisco earthquake and fire. And that was about 30 after the “Great San Francisco Earthquake”.We learned early on building made of bricks just fall apart during an earthquake.

author: tom66
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 03, 2020, 06:12:35 pm
content: Brick construction is mostly post WWI, but you will find very few homes today that are still predominantly build from timber. Timber framing is typically used for roofs only, with internal walls being constructed of fire-resistant plasterboard backed onto aluminium or timber studs with internal insulation, typically. (Sometimes interior walls are constructed using cinderblock, but this seems to be uncommon nowadays, probably due to the cost.) The exterior construction is near universally brick, with some homes using cinder or concrete for certain styles, with render sometimes added atop.There are ratings on how long a fire can take to spread between adjacent units. For most apartment blocks it's at least 30 minutes assuming typical fire load in the building. If you think about it, that gives the fire service 15 minutes to get to a fire and another 15 minutes to get occupants out of the adjacent unit before there's a risk to their safety. It also limits the spread considerably should the fire begin to grow beyond the capacity of the initial response.

author: DougSpindler
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 03, 2020, 07:14:53 pm
content: Quote from: tom66 on October 03, 2020, 06:12:35 pmOne. Builds with the resources which are abundant, inexpensive and will last a lifetime in the environment where it was built. Europe appears to be littered with structures built with stone. You had one element the US didn’t really have to contend with, thousands of years of wars.

author: tom66
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 03, 2020, 08:43:19 pm
content: No, but that doesn't explain why American homes in fire zones continue to be built to such lower standards still. I can understand the lower cost of housing in areas where forest fires aren't a huge risk but they are still commonly built in California, Colorado, Washington, Oregon etc. Then you see homes levelled by fire and the homes are rebuilt the same way. It would be the same as building on a flood plain without taking precautions. Make a town of timber and then act surprised when it burns to the ground every twenty years. This is going to be especially important as climate change increases the risk of forest fires.

author: DougSpindler
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 04, 2020, 03:56:43 pm
content: Quote from: tom66 on October 03, 2020, 08:43:19 pmWell what material would you use?Brick/stone is more expensive and while the outside of the building might not burn, what's inside will surely burn. We saw that happen in the 1906 Earthquake and Fire. And you have to remember, one earthquake and these structures fall apart and have to be destroyed.Mud? Doesn't hold up so well in the rains.Plastic ? Not so sure we would want to build millions of homes out of plastic. We already have enough trouble with plastic. Not only that plastics would be horrible in a fire.Steel? Can't say I have ever seen a steel home. Warehouses yes, but not homes.So what's left?Wood. It's something we have an abundance of. It's easy to work with. Not bad of the environment and does really well in the largest of earthquakes. Wooden homes offer some fire resistance, but probably will not survive a firestorm. (But some have.)What's the magic building material you think we should use?

author: tom66
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 04, 2020, 05:52:38 pm
content: Brick from clay mines (everywhere more or less, just requires the infrastructure), or concrete prefab with rendering to create an acceptable exterior.Sure, wood is cheap, and that is exactly why it is used, but in a fire zone, it's a liability. And there are plenty of construction techniques using brick or prefab that can withstand earthquakes. As I said, it makes sense to use it where it doesn't create hazards, but in a forest fire zone? I wouldn't buy a home like that.I also question wood being good for the environment; how many trees do you have to cut down to make a house? Razing large forests to build homes sounds like the opposite of environmentally friendly.

author: Bud
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 04, 2020, 05:58:14 pm
content: Cinder blocks. Inexpensive, strong and warm.

author: DougSpindler
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 04, 2020, 06:19:53 pm
content: Quote from: Bud on October 04, 2020, 05:58:14 pmUntil there's an earthquake. Then they are weak and cold.

author: DougSpindler
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 04, 2020, 06:32:35 pm
content: Quote from: tom66 on October 04, 2020, 05:52:38 pmTress, unlike clay is a renewable resource. Like corn or other crops, one just hast to plant and wait for the trees to mature. Brick hasn't done so well in earthquake country. It tends to crack when shaken. Wood during an earthquake flexes.How many trees to make a house? You are asking that the wrong way. It's how many houses can be built from one tree? The answer is 20, and we are talking two bedroom 1 bath houses if build from redwood (which is fire and pest resistant) from old growth. New growth, I have not seen any figures.