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If they're oil cooled transformers then they do have a tendency of catching on fire. It won't take half your street out but I wouldn't want to be 15 feet from o
by King-Aaron 3y ago
If they're oil cooled transformers then they do have a tendency of catching on fire. It won't take half your street out but I wouldn't want to be 15 feet from one that's on fire.
- WJW 3y agoOh stop fearmongering. "A tendency of catching on fire" makes it sound like that happens every week. Fires in substation transformers are extremely rare and any given transformer is unlikely to see any significant incident in its rated life. Of course if one gets hits by a meteorite and catches fire then keep a safe distance. Definitely more than 15 feet. In normal operation they are extremely safe though.
- butler14 3y agoThanks!
- King-Aaron 3y agoHaving been a first responder to a fire in a shopping centre sub station/transformer where a technician lost their life in the incident, I do have a limited amount of experience around transformer fires, and I don't necessarily see my comment as 'fear mongering'. Particularly when the context is the question the person above me asked (failure modes of large substations). Under normal operation they are safe, and in abnormal circumstances they can catch on fire.
- JohnFen 3y agoWhen I was a child, a pole-mounted transformer on my street exploded, making a huge, earth-shaking boom and taking the top of the pole it was mounted on with it. It scattered debris widely. A hazmat crew in full bunny suits showed up to clean up the mess. The story I remember (this was a long time ago) is that PCBs were present -- I think they stopped using PCBs in these things since then -- and that was why the hazmat team was needed. It was quite exciting, though, and remains a vivid memory.