The fireman near the end is not attempting to extinguish the fire coming out of the grate...He knows better...He is trying to cool off the side of the building next to the grate, to prevent damage. The archaic underground power grids in some cities are appalling. I watched the same scenario on 17th street in Washington DC in the summer of 2000. The arcing in the tunnels continued for over an hour before Pepco was finally able to disconnect the power. Some of the bangs you hear are from strong amperage in the medium voltage cables, as they are disintegrated. The huge explosions result from the buildup of semi-flammable gasses from the burning insulation and metals finally igniting.
I have to repost this comment every once in a while. The color of the flames were exactly as the video shows. I understand that cameras can make colors look different due to a bunch of technology I don't understand. But the colors you see is how it appeared when I shot the vid. #2 we were in fact NOT trying to put the fire out only trying to keep it from spreading into the high rise building . Once the power was shut off we put the fire out in a few minutes with foam. And last but not least, the guy showed up shortly after the fire was out and drove his little car away like nothing happened. (But I'm guessing the paint on the passengers side is not faring so well). Thank you all for watching.
Chris Klein I think it is most likely that the blue light is the reflection of light from the arcing off the smoke OR it could also be an extension of the arc up into the smoke due to the partial ionization which exists in the rising hot gasses. I can't think of anything (which would be in a transformer) which would burn with a bright blue natural flame.
Chris Klein That is what we call Electric Arc, this happen when you have a short circuit and mean you have a high amount of electricity escaping to the ground. The Electric Arc is super hot and the risk to be killed by an electrocution is high too, so the firemen were putting their life in tremendous risk. They could suffer one electrocution, and I guess the interval between the water spread it was to avoid the electrocution. Congratulation for the job!
cameras pick up infrared light as blue or purple, especially older ones, cheaper ones or if for any other reason equipped with a less than ideal highpass filter
ariben- Thanks for the info. Once the electric was turned off we were able to quickly put the fire out with foam. The problem was trying to get the power shut off in downtown Columbus.
Fire fighters are not dumb, but as a firefighter you can not be expected to know everything about every surface and all the potential issue that come with that issue. Put simply firefighters are known for the ability to overcome and adapt, if not the whole world would be a crispy critter. BTW thanks for all you do.
@FJSchrank . Thanks for answering, frankly I get tired of answering the same questions about the vid. It"s not fake or altered, the car survived and the owner drove it away once we put out the fire (may need a new paint job). The fire went out very quick and easy with foam once the power was shut off. The firefighter was not "Dumb " you can use a fog stream near live electric ( but only if you have to) the building next to the fire had glass panels. If they failed, then we have a highrise fire.
When you see a flame, you are seeing something that is glowing with a certain color. Heat naturally causes things to glow. If you heat up a piece of iron hot enough, it will glow red. Heat it more and it glows orange or yellow. The temperature controls the color. In the yellow part of a candle flame, you are seeing tiny particles of soot that are hot enough to glow yellow. In a blue flame, two things are happening. First, the flame is very hot. Second, it is gas molecules that are glowing rather than pieces of soot. Very hot gas molecules glow blue. TL:DR - a blue flame means that the fire is hot enough to consume all gases within the flame
Yes, all High Voltage transformers are filled with oil. The oil is use to insulate and cool the copper windings. The problem with HV, is that is can create an arc which burns almost anything making a carbon conductive path which causes more arcing. FYI flame is also conductive to HV, so this is just a cascading effect of arc and explosions until power is cut. This is why HV is so dangerous! Any tiny arc ends up destroying everything.
@davidwmasquelier -I work in underground transformer vaults, but not for this particular utility. i haven't see an incident report on this, and I am not sure how their equip. is configured. the popping is caused by the electricity going to ground, the force of fault current blowing the ground clear, and then re making the short again, as it continues the insulation on more secondary cables melt, and more cables fail, until it sounds like a war zone.
When they finally shut down the grid it blacked out a large part of downtown Columbus including our Convention center. BTW it was also a weekend. when they finally cut thepower we used foam to quickly piy out the fire. And the owner of the car drove it away ( think it may need a little paint)
@MrCookieSeller The popping sounds were fuses blowing. They would reset and then pop right away. It kept on until the electric was finally shut off and then were able to quickly put the fire out with foam.
The fire in that vault is from “Magic Blue Smoke & Fire”. The explosions are from the power going to ground or neutral. There are also current limiters that act like fuses for the network that burn in the clear to save the the other part of the network. However we would be talking in excess of 2500 amperes though per leg. There could also be a network equipment in there adding to the fuel for the fire?
Columbus has a number of these underground transformer vaults that have been there at least since the sixties. They form a "ring" around downtown core area and all the secondaries are tied together electrically in parallel(secondary loop). With this arrangement they can isolate any one and the rest can stay energized. The voltage is 13,200Y/7600 3 phase primary and 208Y/120 3phase 4 wire secondary. This way they can remove a transformer and still keep power at a reduced level to the building/s.
"Dude, you gotta see this welder I just bought. It's the same model Chuck Norris uses to make popcorn." "Chuck Norris makes his popcorn with it? Wow. That must be some welder."
I saw one of those blow up last night after a construction crew hit it. A lot of people thought a gas line had ignited because it was so loud, and it shook the ground when it blew up.
Damn, it's absolutely hypnotic. That guy is going to need something more than a paint job, I was expecting that car to eventually catch fire, glad it didn't.
The fire fighter was cooling the building, not putting it out. the loud banging is the sound of copper exploding under an arc. Basically a lightning storm in a box.
I just saw this and wow that blue flame, that can be due to metals and stuff that are burning in the area. I have never seen a blue flame before but this is a heck of a video!!! thank you for posting it. I just now found it. The blue flame is rare but not with the sparks. There had to be metals causing this.Sulfer causes blue flame
Very dramatic picture. Five stars. In the old days, we used Pyranol, a PCB substance. It wouldn't burn for anything, but proved to be persistent and toxic, so it was banned. Today, flammable oil is used in transformers, or sometimes silicone. -- I am a former power company electrical engineer.
I remember this one as I lived there at the time! It was in Nashville, outside the Hard Rock Cafe, one of NES's underground network transformers failed catastrophically. Made the local news back in 1998.
Awesome footage. It can take a while isolating power sometimes especially when fault men are busy on other jobs, although these cases get prioritised, and the control room get not the correct information where the actual fault is. In complex networks a lot of TX's are parrallelled up and other TX's may be back feeding through the low voltage supply. These situations are often quite dangerous, and best to stay well clear of them.
Ok people! It is almost purple. Not lense contamination. Transformer oil will not sustain combustion by itself! This is part of the arc that you're seeing. Arcing inside the vault creates heat and when the heat raises it brings the arc up with it. These firemen are waiting for the circuit to be opened or turned off and are preparing to do two things. Fight fires that the intense heat may cause, the car and building, and secondly, the vault with a foam that will not conduct electricity.
Lol at the "caution tape." As if the roaring blue fireball and molten copper splatter erupting from the ground aren't enough of a warning to stay away from that area! :) Still cool video and fireman were very brave to fight that fire. Kudos for keeping the building from becoming involved!
the explosion at 3:45 is from the transformer coolant oil bursting from the transformer chassis, either due to over-pressurization from the heat of the fire, or out-gassing inside the transformer from internal arcing, or possibly both
@ArmyRescue1 probably the windings vaporizing as they short out to each-other, and the roaring explosion was most likely the busses arcing over, vaporizing those to, which also caused the oil to heat and burn rapidly aswell
it's purple because the strong infrared light from the fire passes through the color filters of a CCD camera, and especially well through the blue filters. When you shine a remote control into your CCD-camera, the light also looks blueish-violet.
A very brave man. I do admire his courage. The blue glow is plasma created by the electric arc ioininzing the gases from the combustion. Just to inform, pure water is not conductive. The impurities in the water are. The fire fighter took a calculated risk that paid off however, it still was a risk. High voltage can do very strange things. My hats off to him for risking his life to save propert!.
@Avarummage I don't know too much about plasma fire, do you get burned and electrocuted at the same time or its just a fancy word for electric fire???????
Crazy stuff! Was the incoming power still on the whole time? Sounded like loud arcing throughout the video. Was there flammable transformer oil or something that caused it to burn so much like that?
Maybe a little plasma, but mostly just hot gases. If there was that much plasma in there, the arc would be continuous, rather than intermittent as it is in this video. I've seen some transformer fires with continuous arcs. Very loud, constant noise at 60Hz + 120Hz, like a truck horn stuck "on" but much louder, and constant, extremely-bright blue-white light (can permanently damage your eyes if you look at it).
@lasergeak Perhaps, but do keep in mind that transformer wires are insulated with brominated and chlorinated plastic. The odd colored fire is likely caused by these hard-to-burn chemicals.
Rapidly expanding gases in a confined space like a underground tunnel will amplify the sound it is creating , therefore being so fucking loud , but also , i have no idea what those sounds were but the final part seems to be a fucking finale .
the reason all the flames are purple is because the camera used to record doesnt have an IR filter. If it did youd see normal orange flames but the heat from the flames is clearly showing here. i expect since its recording around fire fighters, they own the camera, so, they would want IR visibility in dark suroundings.
ok i havnt watched the whole video yet, and i have a few questions. is the blue light fire? or is it smoke being illuminated from the electrizity or is it electricity its self? and what are the poping sounds? the transformer or the fire dp. hitting something?
Those are some eery looking flames. Nice sound quality by the way. What kind of camera did you use? Oh, and what kind of monster was there lurking under the pavement? Specs?
My old friend once told me, courage is one part brave, three parts fool. No disrespect to the firefighter my friend, it takes a lot more courage to go inside a burning building, where everybody try to get out. All firefighters earn my respect.
Firefighter #1 - "What do we got?" Firefighter #2 - "Looks like a fire under the sidewalk." Firefighter #1 - "What caused it you think?" Firefighter #2 - "Electrical Company told us they had a 13.2Kv transformer melt." Firefighter #1 - "Well, there's a hydrant over there, lets go tap in and douse it before it gets outta hand." Firefighter #2 - "Great idea, I'll go suit and we'll put this out!" /facepalm
![เบิ้ล ปทุมราช - อ้ายกินดอง น้องลาบงัว ft. สแน็ก อัจฉรีย์ [OFFICIAL MV]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/-OK--KaSPcI/mqdefault.jpg)
The fireman near the end is not attempting to extinguish the fire coming out of the grate...He knows better...He is trying to cool off the side of the building next to the grate, to prevent damage. The archaic underground power grids in some cities are appalling. I watched the same scenario on 17th street in Washington DC in the summer of 2000. The arcing in the tunnels continued for over an hour before Pepco was finally able to disconnect the power. Some of the bangs you hear are from strong amperage in the medium voltage cables, as they are disintegrated. The huge explosions result from the buildup of semi-flammable gasses from the burning insulation and metals finally igniting.
Power company: "Power's off. You can go in and put the fire out."
Transformer: "Bzzzzzzzt!"
Fireman: "Yeah... Screw that."
I have to repost this comment every once in a while. The color of the flames were exactly as the video shows. I understand that cameras can make colors look different due to a bunch of technology I don't understand. But the colors you see is how it appeared when I shot the vid. #2 we were in fact NOT trying to put the fire out only trying to keep it from spreading into the high rise building . Once the power was shut off we put the fire out in a few minutes with foam. And last but not least, the guy showed up shortly after the fire was out and drove his little car away like nothing happened. (But I'm guessing the paint on the passengers side is not faring so well). Thank you all for watching.
Chris Klein I think it is most likely that the blue light is the reflection of light from the arcing off the smoke OR it could also be an extension of the arc up into the smoke due to the partial ionization which exists in the rising hot gasses. I can't think of anything (which would be in a transformer) which would burn with a bright blue natural flame.
Chris Klein That is what we call Electric Arc, this happen when you have a short circuit and mean you have a high amount of electricity escaping to the ground. The Electric Arc is super hot and the risk to be killed by an electrocution is high too, so the firemen were putting their life in tremendous risk.
They could suffer one electrocution, and I guess the interval between the water spread it was to avoid the electrocution.
Congratulation for the job!
Well, that's plasma for you....
Plasma fire
cameras pick up infrared light as blue or purple, especially older ones, cheaper ones or if for any other reason equipped with a less than ideal highpass filter
ariben- Thanks for the info. Once the electric was turned off we were able to quickly put the fire out with foam. The problem was trying to get the power shut off in downtown Columbus.
that purple fire is beautiful
Thanks!!
it's called plasma
Plasma fire?
Now play some Hendrix in the background lol
Fire fighters are not dumb, but as a firefighter you can not be expected to know everything about every surface and all the potential issue that come with that issue. Put simply firefighters are known for the ability to overcome and adapt, if not the whole world would be a crispy critter. BTW thanks for all you do.
some ones gonna be pissed when they get back to their car
Dietra Taylor looks like a E46 facelift, too.
@FJSchrank . Thanks for answering, frankly I get tired of answering the same questions about the vid. It"s not fake or altered, the car survived and the owner drove it away once we put out the fire (may need a new paint job). The fire went out very quick and easy with foam once the power was shut off. The firefighter was not "Dumb " you can use a fog stream near live electric ( but only if you have to) the building next to the fire had glass panels. If they failed, then we have a highrise fire.
When you see a flame, you are seeing something that is glowing with a certain color. Heat naturally causes things to glow. If you heat up a piece of iron hot enough, it will glow red. Heat it more and it glows orange or yellow. The temperature controls the color.
In the yellow part of a candle flame, you are seeing tiny particles of soot that are hot enough to glow yellow.
In a blue flame, two things are happening. First, the flame is very hot. Second, it is gas molecules that are glowing rather than pieces of soot. Very hot gas molecules glow blue.
TL:DR - a blue flame means that the fire is hot enough to consume all gases within the flame
That is the coolest looking fire i have ever seen.
Amazing video man, I've never seen an underground transformer fire. Thanks for putting it up and kudos for being a smart, safe and well-trained crew.
Yes, all High Voltage transformers are filled with oil. The oil is use to insulate and cool the copper windings. The problem with HV, is that is can create an arc which burns almost anything making a carbon conductive path which causes more arcing. FYI flame is also conductive to HV, so this is just a cascading effect of arc and explosions until power is cut. This is why HV is so dangerous! Any tiny arc ends up destroying everything.
@davidwmasquelier -I work in underground transformer vaults, but not for this particular utility. i haven't see an incident report on this, and I am not sure how their equip. is configured. the popping is caused by the electricity going to ground, the force of fault current blowing the ground clear, and then re making the short again, as it continues the insulation on more secondary cables melt, and more cables fail, until it sounds like a war zone.
Someone call the GHOST BUSTERS👻
👻👻👻👻👻📱📱📱📱📱📱
When they finally shut down the grid it blacked out a large part of downtown Columbus including our Convention center. BTW it was also a weekend. when they finally cut thepower we used foam to quickly piy out the fire. And the owner of the car drove it away ( think it may need a little paint)
You know, the one bloody time where we need some Purple Rain, and yet Prince is nowhere to be seen.
by far one of the coolest videos of something i have never seen, thanks for posting.
Most beautiful thing I have seen in a long time. Amazing purple flames!
That fire has a nice hue, i never seen cooling oil burn in that colour.
Portal to hell opening?
Who pissed off Ol' Lucy?
@MrCookieSeller The popping sounds were fuses blowing. They would reset and then pop right away. It kept on until the electric was finally shut off and then were able to quickly put the fire out with foam.
The fire in that vault is from “Magic Blue Smoke & Fire”. The explosions are from the power going to ground or neutral. There are also current limiters that act like fuses for the network that burn in the clear to save the the other part of the network. However we would be talking in excess of 2500 amperes though per leg. There could also be a network equipment in there adding to the fuel for the fire?
Columbus has a number of these underground transformer vaults that have been there at least since the sixties. They form a "ring" around downtown core area and all the secondaries are tied together electrically in parallel(secondary loop). With this arrangement they can isolate any one and the rest can stay energized. The voltage is 13,200Y/7600 3 phase primary and 208Y/120 3phase 4 wire secondary. This way they can remove a transformer and still keep power at a reduced level to the building/s.
First when just nice colours: c: cool
Big boom: ;-; :(
"Dude, you gotta see this welder I just bought. It's the same model Chuck Norris uses to make popcorn."
"Chuck Norris makes his popcorn with it? Wow. That must be some welder."
Wow look at all that plasma in that plasma fire that can evaporate you less then of a second.
WHAT?
Scary and beautiful.
I saw one of those blow up last night after a construction crew hit it. A lot of people thought a gas line had ignited because it was so loud, and it shook the ground when it blew up.
Damn, it's absolutely hypnotic. That guy is going to need something more than a paint job, I was expecting that car to eventually catch fire, glad it didn't.
sound more like a angry high voltage dryer with a few cinder blocks in it
And that's why my favourite colour is purple.
I'm not kidding when I say I though several times " should we be running and screaming like little girls right now " lol
The fire fighter was cooling the building, not putting it out. the loud banging is the sound of copper exploding under an arc. Basically a lightning storm in a box.
You have NO idea how glad I am for you that this video finally posted!!!! :o) Nice job - interesting stuff...
I just saw this and wow that blue flame, that can be due to metals and stuff that are burning in the area. I have never seen a blue flame before but this is a heck of a video!!! thank you for posting it. I just now found it. The blue flame is rare but not with the sparks. There had to be metals causing this.Sulfer causes blue flame
Very dramatic picture. Five stars. In the old days, we used Pyranol, a PCB substance. It wouldn't burn for anything, but proved to be persistent and toxic, so it was banned. Today, flammable oil is used in transformers, or sometimes silicone. -- I am a former power company electrical engineer.
As the fireman approached the transformer said YOU SHALL NOT PASS!
Sounded like someone using a broiler with oil in it.
Man, I would love to see what's going on below the surface on this one. Those explosions sound fantastic.
I remember this one as I lived there at the time!
It was in Nashville, outside the Hard Rock Cafe, one of NES's underground network transformers failed catastrophically. Made the local news back in 1998.
The fire was really blue. I think there was a large amount of copper
Without mainstream distribution, Prince has gone underground.
What did they put in that transformer under there, electrolytic bombs?!?!
A beautiful blue flame. A beautiful thing.
Awesome footage. It can take a while isolating power sometimes especially when fault men are busy on other jobs, although these cases get prioritised, and the control room get not the correct information where the actual fault is.
In complex networks a lot of TX's are parrallelled up and other TX's may be back feeding through the low voltage supply.
These situations are often quite dangerous, and best to stay well clear of them.
This purple flame looks tight
Ok people! It is almost purple. Not lense contamination. Transformer oil will not sustain combustion by itself! This is part of the arc that you're seeing. Arcing inside the vault creates heat and when the heat raises it brings the arc up with it. These firemen are waiting for the circuit to be opened or turned off and are preparing to do two things. Fight fires that the intense heat may cause, the car and building, and secondly, the vault with a foam that will not conduct electricity.
Copper fire is beautiful
It's beautiful!
the fire looks epic.
Nice Video!
Wow, a blueish-purple flame. That place must be really hot!
Basically Akuma doing his typical hadouken spam.
Lol at the "caution tape." As if the roaring blue fireball and molten copper splatter erupting from the ground aren't enough of a warning to stay away from that area! :)
Still cool video and fireman were very brave to fight that fire. Kudos for keeping the building from becoming involved!
Yeah I wouldn't want to spray water on that Mr. Fireman.
the explosion at 3:45 is from the transformer coolant oil bursting from the transformer chassis, either due to over-pressurization from the heat of the fire, or out-gassing inside the transformer from internal arcing, or possibly both
That's a transformer with attitude!
The banging sounds like it could be arcing. Pretty cool, considering no one was hurt, albeit that lil car.
Sounds like an angry trapped fire god,trying to get out.
I love the smell of plasma in the evening!
@ArmyRescue1 probably the windings vaporizing as they short out to each-other, and the roaring explosion was most likely the busses arcing over, vaporizing those to, which also caused the oil to heat and burn rapidly aswell
it's purple because the strong infrared light from the fire passes through the color filters of a CCD camera, and especially well through the blue filters. When you shine a remote control into your CCD-camera, the light also looks blueish-violet.
That’s pretty sick
A very brave man. I do admire his courage. The blue glow is plasma created by the electric arc ioininzing the gases from the combustion. Just to inform, pure water is not conductive. The impurities in the water are. The fire fighter took a calculated risk that paid off however, it still was a risk. High voltage can do very strange things. My hats off to him for risking his life to save propert!.
@Avarummage I don't know too much about plasma fire, do you get burned and electrocuted at the same time or its just a fancy word for electric fire???????
that is both scary and beautiful at the same time.. the purple flames coming off of that.. hope the car made it :D
man those flames look cool haha
WELL PUT MATE. Well put.
omfg that looks soooo cool do they have any fires in green :P
Who ever filmed this did a great job, Vid is prety dam cool :)
Crazy stuff! Was the incoming power still on the whole time? Sounded like loud arcing throughout the video.
Was there flammable transformer oil or something that caused it to burn so much like that?
Maybe a little plasma, but mostly just hot gases. If there was that much plasma in there, the arc would be continuous, rather than intermittent as it is in this video. I've seen some transformer fires with continuous arcs. Very loud, constant noise at 60Hz + 120Hz, like a truck horn stuck "on" but much louder, and constant, extremely-bright blue-white light (can permanently damage your eyes if you look at it).
@lasergeak Perhaps, but do keep in mind that transformer wires are insulated with brominated and chlorinated plastic. The odd colored fire is likely caused by these hard-to-burn chemicals.
the flame are beautiful
Rapidly expanding gases in a confined space like a underground tunnel will amplify the sound it is creating , therefore being so fucking loud , but also , i have no idea what those sounds were but the final part seems to be a fucking finale .
the reason all the flames are purple is because the camera used to record doesnt have an IR filter. If it did youd see normal orange flames but the heat from the flames is clearly showing here. i expect since its recording around fire fighters, they own the camera, so, they would want IR visibility in dark suroundings.
get some popcorn kernels, marshmallows, chocolate, and some gram crackers. now that's a perfect bon fire pit with a light show. lol
I remember those flames from Nox. You walk through them and instead of draining your health, they drain your mana.
Sounds like the cable of one or more phases is bouncing around in the transformer chamber
Blue fire, that's AWESOME!
That fireman must of shat himself, the fire was like FUUUUU
Sounds like something dark and sinister is trying to break out.
firefighter: "this looks pretty fucking cool." 3:45, "OH SHIT I'M OUTTA HERE HERE!"
I never knew fire could be purple
Holy crap! Why is the flame that color and what causes those loud thumping sounds?
There's something strange in the neighbourhood who are you gonna call? Ghostbusters!
0:47 it gave the firefighter a warning..
Well put. :)
what were those sloding sounds? actuall explosions or something hitting metal?
Это - аномалия "жарка", а рядом - сталкер в экзоскелете. А артефакты будут офигенные.
ok i havnt watched the whole video yet, and i have a few questions. is the blue light fire? or is it smoke being illuminated from the electrizity or is it electricity its self? and what are the poping sounds? the transformer or the fire dp. hitting something?
Beautiful.
try being embroiled in it, then you can experience and appreciate its true beauty
+Electric Warrior Let me know when the next one is going to blow and I'll go thr other way.
(Not sparky qualified at any standard of high voltage)
I know its dangerous but that color is beautiful
That fireman was like F*** THAT!
Those are some eery looking flames. Nice sound quality by the way. What kind of camera did you use?
Oh, and what kind of monster was there lurking under the pavement? Specs?
The arc below illuminated the smoke giving it that colour. It's also partially like that because the camera can't handle the brightness.
Those sounds are very scary and they must be pretty loud.
My old friend once told me, courage is one part brave, three parts fool. No disrespect to the firefighter my friend, it takes a lot more courage to go inside a burning building, where everybody try to get out. All firefighters earn my respect.
Sounds like an angry trapped animal trying to get out to me.
Firefighter #1 - "What do we got?"
Firefighter #2 - "Looks like a fire under the sidewalk."
Firefighter #1 - "What caused it you think?"
Firefighter #2 - "Electrical Company told us they had a 13.2Kv transformer melt."
Firefighter #1 - "Well, there's a hydrant over there, lets go tap in and douse it before it gets outta hand."
Firefighter #2 - "Great idea, I'll go suit and we'll put this out!"
/facepalm
look at the colour of the flame!! is that like fire and plasma combined?