On Sat, 16 May 2020 18:06:00 +0100, Ed Pawlowski wrote:

My neighbour's roof caught fire because the incoming electricity feed
(going into the attic!) came loose from it's mounting and shorted. 6
months after I had warned him it was loose and he said "not my
problem, it's up to the electricity board". He lost his whole roof,
including many family photos stored up there, and had builders
repairing it on the insurance for a couple of months, while he rented
another place, also at their expense. I was astonished that the fire
service had no ability to turn off the power, and also wouldn't use
their hoses without turning it off (they could have just earthed
them). 30 minutes was wasted waiting in the middle of the night for
the electricity board to come out and turn it off. Not sure who ended
up paying. He claimed everything from the insurance, but if I was the
insurance company, the electric board and the fire service would have
been in big trouble.

To use water would have been stupid. Easy to say at your keyboard "all
they had to do was" but it is not always that easy. Firemen could have
lost their lives.

You really are ignorant aren't you? Very easy to earth the end of the hose, if you're scared of only 240 volts.

As for the electric board, why them? Were they notified of the potential problem?

Because they were stupid enough to not give the fire brigade the ability to turn off the power at the pole.

The homeowner was a jackass either way not caring about his own safety.

Or perhaps he wasn't a pussy like you? He however was a jackass for losing part of his property. He was never in any danger, he simply left the building when it caught fire.