Author
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Topic: Static charge from Aussie's clothing starts fire
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Hephaestion
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 4795
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posted 18 September 2005 03:42 PM
This guy was HOT!
quote: An Australian man built up a 40,000-volt charge of static electricity in his clothes as he walked, leaving a trail of scorched carpet and molten plastic and forcing firefighters to evacuate a building.
Frank Clewer, who was wearing a woolen shirt and a synthetic nylon jacket, was oblivious to the growing electrical current that was building up as his clothes rubbed together.
When he walked into a building in the country town of Warrnambool in the southern state of Victoria Thursday, the electrical charge ignited the carpet.
[...]
Firefighters cut electricity to the building thinking the burns might have been caused by a power surge.
Clewer, who after leaving the building discovered he had scorched a piece of plastic on the floor of his car, returned to seek help from the firefighters.
"We tested his clothes with a static electricity field meter and measured a current of 40,000 volts, which is one step shy of spontaneous combustion, where his clothes would have self-ignited," Barton said.
"I've been firefighting for over 35 years and I've never come across anything like this," he said.
Firefighters took possession of Clewer's jacket and stored it in the courtyard of the fire station, where it continued to give off a strong electrical current.
From: goodbye... :-( | Registered: Dec 2003
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maestro
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 7842
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posted 19 September 2005 01:01 AM
quote: Originally posted by Jingles: It's not the volts, it's the amps.Still, what a ridiculous story.
I'll go with the volts times the amps (watts). Without voltage there is no current flow, and without current flow, no work is done. However, be that as it may, the story is fishy in the extreme.
From: Vancouver | Registered: Jan 2005
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