In article ,
Ignoramus23196 wrote:

On 2015-07-16, Pete Keillor wrote:

One of the plant environmental services guys told me a story a long
time ago. Apparently, they were trying to fill one of the sloughs on
the back side of the plant for a production site. The problem was, in
1942 they bulldozed a bunch of native growth cypress logs ~3' in
diameter into that swamp to get them out of the way. Now (1980's) a
huge dozer / excavator dropped into those logs while trying to push
fill into the slough and got stuck good. The guy telling the story
said he was down there that night when they tried to pull the dozer
out with a 100+ ton crane with a 2" wire rope (I've never seen a cable
that big in use myself). Anyway, he said that cable started to smoke,
then started to glow, and everybody started hollering and running.
Shortly after that, it parted in a shower of sparks. Luckily, nobody
got hurt. They abandoned the dozer and just filled over the top of
it.

Sounds fun, but difficult to believe...

I'd ask around, because it is known that hemp ropes when overloaded
will smoke and catch fire if not immediately wetted.

The following story may or may not be true, but it was well known in
nautical circles that overstressed ropes will ignite.

..http://catholicunderthehood.com/2010...olic-history-t
he-obelisk-before-st-peters-is-blessed/

Joe Gwinn