On Sun, 21 Mar 2010 04:05:11 -0700 (PDT), the infamous cncmillgil
scrawled the following:

How bout a surge from downed power lines? Ours got knocked down from
ice on trees falling on the main lines into the house 4am Christmas

It's highly likely that you had 17KV coming in where 120V should have
been when the main power lines shorted across a transformer somewhere.


eve. Started a fire (12" flames) on the Belkin UL approved spike/
surge protector right next to the christmas tree & plasma TV! Could
never get an answer as to why this happened. Knocked out a couple
other surge strips including a plug in CO2 detector.
Thank god thats all that happened.

http://users.cin.net/~milgil/Belkin_burned1.JPG
http://users.cin.net/~milgil/Belkin_burned2.JPG
http://users.cin.net/~milgil/Belkin_burned3.JPG
http://users.cin.net/~milgil/Belkin_burned4.JPG
http://users.cin.net/~milgil/Belkin_burned5.JPG

Must be something to do with the end of the power- where it
dissipates ?

Yeah, the MOVs are at the switched end. That's precisely where they'd
absorb the energy, get hot, and FLAME AWAY.

--
If we attend continually and promptly to the little that we can do, we
shall ere long be surprised to find how little remains that we cannot do.
-- Samuel Butler