Beginning of a Fire - Part 2

By: Nick Markowitz Jr.
Fire Investigator –Electrical Contractor

T he folowing pictures are of a old fashioned fuse holder which supplied power to the tower 1# lights at WAVL 910 AM in Apollo Pa. The tower lighting was installed in the late 40's and because the tower is drawing approx 25 amps when lighted this continous heavy load along with a poorly made splice by a previous station engineer
caused the connection to heat up in the fuse base to the point that the arcing blew the fuse holder away from the screw that holds it in place. We were lucky as the metal enclosure stopped a fire from happening but had this been an older knob and tube wired home which typically had asbestoes lined wood fuse cabinets a fire more than likely would have resulted in the fuse cabinet and eventually burned the house to the ground.

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