When a house is on fire, they will usually use use water to put it out. But aren‘t they at risk of getting an electrical shock since there is usually still power in the house and they flood everything with water?
In: Engineering
The water isn’t in a constant stream. Also the power is often cut to avoid more electrical fire. Fresh water doesnt conduct well anyway.
Same way you dont get electrocuted peeing on an electric fence, they did a mythbusters on it.
They’re not going to wait for the utility companies to get there before they start firefighting, but they have dispatch get utility companies rolling to help secure them. Dispatch gives the on-scene commander an ETA if available.
Fresh (non-salty) water isn’t very conductive. A little bit of the electricity might make it around, but most of it can’t.
Also electricity takes the path of least resistance. There’s no reason for the electricity to come back to the firefighter when all it “wants” is to go back to the other wire in the outlet.
Though the risk of electrical shock is quite low, many cities require an electrical shutoff on the exterior of the building specifically so firefighters can turn the power to the building off while they work.
if the wiring is exposed enough to be a hazard the house is already pretty much toast and they aren’t in it anyway. They are just hosing it from outside.
They’re at more of a risk of electrocution when they are trying to bust through a wall to save a person than if they are just putting out the fire.
I can’t speak for the firefighter side of it, but from the electrical side, everything after the Mains Distribution Panel is on either a circuit breaker, or a fuse which will instantly turn off power to that circuit if the current becomes shorted or a condition occurs that tries to “draw” more current than the circuit protection device is designed to allow.
When I was a volunteer firefighter 30 years ago in a small rural area we had a verbal agreement with the utility company that we could pull the meter. In exchange, we were to let them know it had been done and where we had left the meter. We always left it near the electrical service where we pulled it.
One of the first arriving unit assignments is to pull the meter to cut power.
Often will also call all relevant utilities like electric and gas
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