Electrocuted Birds Are Bursting Into Flames and Starting Wildfires (gizmodo.com) 109
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Gizmodo: Electrocuted, flaming bird carcasses are falling off of power lines and causing wildfires across the U.S. This surprisingly common phenomenon has been responsible for at least three Colorado wildfires so far this summer. These events are not isolated. A 2022 study found that electrocuted birds caused 44 wildfires in the contiguous United States between 2014 and 2018. That study was led by Taylor Barnes, a biologist who now works for electric utility company EDM International. In the paper, Barnes wrote that "avian-caused ignitions" happen when a bird sits on an overhead power line. For reasons that can vary from case to case, sometimes the bird receives a powerful electrical shock, setting its feathers on fire. The dead or dying bird then falls, and, on occasion, lands in some brush or other flammable material.
"Sometimes they burst into flames," Barnes told 9News, an NBC affiliate in Colorado. "Sometimes they just fall dead. Not every bird that is electrocuted will fall to the ground and start a fire." Odds are, you've seen birds perched on electrical wires countless times without witnessing spontaneous sparrow combustion. Barnes said birds just going for a sit pose no threat. Because the birds are not touching the ground, the electricity in the power line has no way to the ground and is not dangerous to them. It's only when the birds get into a part of the power infrastructure where a circuit can be completed that they end up crispy. [...]
It's not clear what happened to the birds involved in Colorado's other two recent fires, which occurred on July 31 and August 27. No people were injured or killed in the incidents. According to Barnes' 2022 study, the area of California coast known as the state's Mediterranean ecoregion has the highest density of wildfires set off by avian ignitions. In the paper, he advised authorities in the area and other fire-prone regions to look into modifying power poles to prevent these electrocutions. Given the devastating effects fires can have and how common they've become, it's surely worth the investment to keep our feathered friends in flight and not on fire.
"Sometimes they burst into flames," Barnes told 9News, an NBC affiliate in Colorado. "Sometimes they just fall dead. Not every bird that is electrocuted will fall to the ground and start a fire." Odds are, you've seen birds perched on electrical wires countless times without witnessing spontaneous sparrow combustion. Barnes said birds just going for a sit pose no threat. Because the birds are not touching the ground, the electricity in the power line has no way to the ground and is not dangerous to them. It's only when the birds get into a part of the power infrastructure where a circuit can be completed that they end up crispy. [...]
It's not clear what happened to the birds involved in Colorado's other two recent fires, which occurred on July 31 and August 27. No people were injured or killed in the incidents. According to Barnes' 2022 study, the area of California coast known as the state's Mediterranean ecoregion has the highest density of wildfires set off by avian ignitions. In the paper, he advised authorities in the area and other fire-prone regions to look into modifying power poles to prevent these electrocutions. Given the devastating effects fires can have and how common they've become, it's surely worth the investment to keep our feathered friends in flight and not on fire.
Ok (Score:4, Funny)
How do we blame this on Biden or preferably Obama?
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How do we blame this on Biden or preferably Obama?
Well, it's actually pretty easy. With Bidenomics a lot of people are soon going to hope fried pigeons fall off the wires into their backyard so that they get some protein in their diet. (*Harris cackle*)
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Birds are getting smart and holding hands, then flying low enough to hit both electrical wires.
Either that or they are bringing a long conductive thread up there with them.
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Damn you, Nixon!!
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We blame A.C. ;)
Re:Ok (Score:5, Informative)
Found the MAGA.
I've seen this (Score:2)
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This actually happened a few hundred yards from my parents house.
Yea... but finally we have a cooking method that doesn't need fire or an appliance!
AND we have found a use for unused airspace between conductors!
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A few years ago I was in front of my house and heard a loud zap-boom, looked up and a crow was falling, on its back, to the ground, just bellow a power pole.
The poor bird was half burned with the wings spread open. The wingspan was clearly wide enough to reach across the electrical wires.
A couple of neighbors got out to investigate the noise and that was the end of it.
I can see how this could start a wildfire.
Re:I've seen this (Score:5, Funny)
This actually happened a few hundred yards from my parents house.
When I was visiting a friend who worked in an old government building in Washington DC I couldn't help but notice all the pigeon poop outside her window, all along the edge of the building, so I commented about it.
She pointed out the high voltage electrical cable that ran the length of the building. The maintenance staff though it would electrocute the birds, but they were completely unphased and nothing happened to them at all.
Immediately I realized the problem and said to her, "That's AC power and those are DC pigeons".
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but they were completely unphased
I see what you did there.
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Good crop of Funny for this story and your joke is a contender for best, but you have me wondering how the wires were placed. If the actual goal was to electrocute birds you'd want to run pairs of wires, probably one charged and one grounded, and somehow positioned to make it easy for birds to get arc welded...
Awww... (Score:5, Funny)
Is someone complaining about "hot chicks in your area"?
Stuff happens (Score:4, Insightful)
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But there will always be conditions for wildfires. We can't change that. We can do some management to improve areas near humans, but that's all.
We also cannot remove all sources of sparks, but again, proper management can limit the sparks. In this case, maybe changing the wire configuration to ignite fewer birds. We cannot remove either the dry conditions nor the sparks, so we need to manage both.
Correction (Score:4, Funny)
"Barnes said birds just going for a sit pose no threat."
Barnes aren't real.
Supposed to be solved. (Score:4, Informative)
Okay, a bird touching only ONE conductor should be safe, as they are not grounded. It is when they go to jump, flap their wings, that there's a possibility of touching two conductors at different potentials, causing an arc and a crispy flaming bird.
The solution is simple - you don't put conductors of sufficient voltage difference close enough for the biggest bird you expect to be in the area (go a bit bigger just to be sure), to cause a short at full wing extension.
Of course, this means we have a lot of legacy wires too close to each other, which is not a cheap fix.
Re:Supposed to be solved. (Score:5, Interesting)
Usually it's not birds, but squirrels.
And honestly, it's actually pretty hard because everything is grounded. Usually things like pole transformers have little cages to prevent squirrels from touching it (whilst standing on the transformer top, which is grounded). But you may have situations where they're touching the wooden poles. Typically wood is high resistance, but certain weather conditions have it that they can be extremely conductive, so they may be walking along the wire, then they go to the pole and because it's grounded and conductive - zap!
Plus, birds do fight, and they're not often always watching where they're going - they may run into a power line and the bird they're fighting with touches another powerline. That row of birds sitting neatly on a power line? You can bet there were probably a few conflicts along the way.
Also, this isn't typically a huge problem until recently - birds, power poles, power lines, squirrels, they've been around for over a century. The technology has evolved and gotten better (e.g., polymer insulators instead of porcelain which can crack and being ineffective). Making it a much different problem because this sort of things should be happening for decades.
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In our area it's usually fruitbats with their 6ft wingspan. Usually the claws on their wingtips catch on the lines so they're stuck up their sizzling away until their liquid content has boiled off.
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That row of birds sitting neatly on a power line? You can bet there were probably a few conflicts along the way.
Thus putting the "row" in the "row".
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only if we had ways to avoid squirrels from climbing to forbiden places ?! hint: search for "anti-squirrel device"
Re: Supposed to be solved. (Score:2)
Why do you have me looking at pictures of shotguns?!
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lol, your google search bubble is only guns! :D
i'm talking about this:
https://s1.qwant.com/thumbr/47... [qwant.com]
this kind of solution exist for centuries already
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I have chickens, I'm aware of the little tuffles you can get in deciding who roosts where.
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That's what I said - problem generally happens when they jump and extend their wings to take off. Though yes, some are high enough potential to air gap to the bird in the right situations.
Still means that an extra few feet would make it drastically less likely. Fighting would complicate matters.
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California Condors have a wingspan of about 9 feet ... that's a pretty big gap. The crow that got zapped in front of my house had a 2-3 feet wingspan.
Ignoring the extra cost to do handle the larger spa, it means that the trees will need to be trimmed even further back.
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Are plyons in the US really small? I'm the UK they are large enough that the gap can't be bridged by birds etc, and they are high enough that most types of tree aren't an issue (although they do keep them back anyway).
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while those are big birds, i too think that this is more related to USA power grid being badly designed, that problem in Europe is lot more rare.
Probably because closer to civilization we buried the power lines and high voltage have huge isolators between the pylons/towers and the power wires. Around me there are many storks nests on top of high voltage power towers, most in places where there are already "baskets" for them to start doing that (and avoid doing too close to the power line). There are places
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see this example, if you zoom, you can actually even see some empty baskets, for helping the storks building the nests in the right places
https://c7.alamy.com/comp/2B1E... [alamy.com]
also notice the hanging high voltage power line, even if a stork lands in the power line, it is not tall enough to get even near of something dangerous
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and the dangerous places (above the isolator) we have some (inverted) spikes that make land and nest build hard, so avoiding that nests are build over those areas
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Part of the problem here is when so many birds congregate on the wires that they make them droop more. And then the other is when they take off in a mass and make the wires bounce around.
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Interesting, hadn't realized that could be a problem as well, well, time to add stronger to the list along with more separation.
Though that doesn't look like a high voltage transmission line, but a more local distribution one.
Solutions can vary by system and location.
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Okay, a bird touching only ONE conductor should be safe, as they are not grounded. It is when they go to jump, flap their wings, that there's a possibility of touching two conductors at different potentials, causing an arc and a crispy flaming bird.
The solution is simple - you don't put conductors of sufficient voltage difference close enough for the biggest bird you expect to be in the area (go a bit bigger just to be sure), to cause a short at full wing extension.
Of course, this means we have a lot of legacy wires too close to each other, which is not a cheap fix.
I was about to ask, other countries have high voltage power lines and birds, also prone to wildfires, why is this not an issue there. In Australia in particular which has a fair few wildfires (bushfires) and plenty of avians.
Fun fact, one way the Australian Authorities (SES or State Emergency Service) track bushfire fronts in Australia is by monitoring when power lines stop responding. Becoming less useful as most power lines are buried these days.
Plot Twist (Score:3, Funny)
The arsonists are starting fires with birds now.
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Revised Jewish Space Laser Theory:
The laser is murdering birds; the fires are just incidental.
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Birds have already been murdered by the government. What's starting the fires are the surveillance drones that replaced the birds.
Unexplained fire in backyard (Score:1)
Had a fire in the backyard start and burn along the chain-link fence line last summer (2023).
The fire department came out and thought I had been burning leaves but after determining that wasn't the case, they said the line above the fence had dropped a hot spark into the debris on the fence line. There wasn't a bird carcass. It may have been a tree branch or a leaf.
The fire kind of burned the dirt along the fence which was about 50/50 dirt/leaves builtup from mowing and leaves blown against the fence.
Angry Birds (Score:2)
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Evolution in action (Score:3)
This is just a temporary problem. After a few generations the birds will evolve to become super-conductors who can bridge a circuit without any ill-effect. When that happens we can use them to power a whole new generation of microchips!
"These events are not isolated" (Score:5, Informative)
44 wildfires... over the course of five years? Given there are more than 60,000 wildfires in the US every year, on average [usafacts.org] - a grand total of nine a year seems pretty isolated.
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Greetings fellow autist. It doesn’t take much for one fire to get out of control and threaten population centers. https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/ne... [cbsnews.com]
Re: "These events are not isolated" (Score:3)
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Let's do the low hanging fruits first.
Tell you what, *you* work on the low hanging fruit, and we'll mobilse some of the other 7,950,999,999 on this planet to look at the birds. The world is over populated. We have humans a plenty. We can work on more than one problem at a time.
Re: "These events are not isolated" (Score:2)
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Great glad we're in agreement. If you're already working on the other problems why even complain about what other people are doing. Go do your thing.
Re: "These events are not isolated" (Score:2)
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Isolated, get it? Now?
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For a whole lot of those 60,000 wildfires, a cause is never identified. Who knows how many of those were also caused by exploding birds.
What? (Score:2)
I don't understand! (Score:1)
Windmills. It's all about windmills killing birds. And there's no sun at night, so you have to go without power after the sun goes down if you have solar panels.
Don't you people know anything???
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Windmills. It's all about windmills killing birds. And there's no sun at night, so you have to go without power after the sun goes down if you have solar panels.
Don't you people know anything???
Hey, I get most of my Kentucky Fried Chicken at night. Don't you take away my power lines! You'll have to pry it from my cold, dead ha--wait. (/redneck)
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You're supposed to wait 'til they hit the ground. ;-)
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Yup. This clearly means that the power company, who the guy was working for, definitely doesn't need to spend millions on REFCLs or similar earth-leakage detectors. It's line-to-line faults! Nothing can be done. Thoughts and prayers. All the usual.
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Totally this.
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Obvious solution (Score:2)
Put the power lines underground. Not only will it be safer for the birds, but there's less likelyhood that storms will interrupt the power supply.
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Put the power lines underground. Not only will it be safer for the birds, but there's less likelyhood that storms will interrupt the power supply.
God damn it. If you do that, how am I going to get my free fried pigeon? God knows with Bidenomics it's all I can afford now! Damn you, Joe! Where the hell is CowboyNeal?
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Put some bourbon in a half eaten jar of peanut butter, mix well, spread that on a nearby tree. Squirrel stew for dinner.
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Put some bourbon in a half eaten jar of peanut butter, mix well, spread that on a nearby tree. Squirrel stew for dinner.
That sounds like a pretty good recipe, but with the current economy I can only afford the really cheap stuff, and I usually drink the first bottle before I even get out of my detached garage. And that's after I push the damned thing in because I can no longer afford gasoline. Up the hill. Both ways. Afterwards, I'm kind of like this [youtu.be].
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Nice homage to Alexandre le Bienheureux (1968):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
They Probably Don't Mean to Burst Into Flames... (Score:2)
Perhaps the wires could be insulated, a bit, even half of them?
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The cost to insulate would be huge, meaning huge electric bills.
Insulation would also mean heat retention, and heat is already one of the biggest causes of service disruptions.
Beavis : Chicks on Fire! (Score:2)
That is better than chicks and fire!
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Chickens on fire, of course. With some moonshine?
This headline (Score:1)
Re: This headline (Score:2)
This does not happen everywhere... (Score:2)
Hoax (Score:2)
Context matters (Score:2)
In the same period, there were over 300,000 wildfires [noaa.gov]. 44 is a very tiny fraction of that.
Not that we shouldn't stop electrocuting birds or doing something about wildfires, but this curiosity isn't the argument for either.
Slow News Day? (Score:2)
A study from 2022 is "news"?
Only on slashdot.
News for ageing nerds.
in other news.. (Score:2)
Re:KFC (Score:1)
But they only offer "extra crispy"
If the potential wasnt so serious (Score:2)
This almost reads like an Angry Birds subplot.
Just update their firmware (Score:2)
But what about the windmills? (Score:1)
I thought it was windmills that killed birds, (and gave whales migraines). According the the DFL, the Domestic Feline League, it's windmills that kill birds, cats just like to socialize with them.
I'm sure the Fossilistas will claim that it's only renewable electricity that kill birds, not natural gas, oil, or lovable coal.
Crossarms (Score:2)
Birds, particularly larger ones, like to perch on crossarms. That provides a grounded structure and places them near the energized conductor. The largrer birds are using these positions as vantage points for prey. So, often near open fields. The solutions include installing bird exclusion devices. Or to mount a second crossarm well above the conductors that is safe for them to use.
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yes, better design solve most problems. See this example around here:
https://www.alamy.com/storks-n... [alamy.com]
while storks build many nest in high voltage power lines, the towers are build so that is not a issue. Many already include already baskets to be easier to build there and so they use it instead of other places. The lines being suspended also helps a lot as even in the power line, they aren't tall enough to reach any dangerous zone.
If the problem is a place to spot for preys, make that spot higher and the o
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this one you can actually see the baskets if you zoon
https://c7.alamy.com/comp/2B1E... [alamy.com]
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In case anyone is wondering: In the above h.v. line photo, the highest (elevation) wires are static shield lines. Grounded to the towers, they produce no hazards to the storks contacting them. The high voltage conductors are suspended below the crossarms a sufficient distance to prevent birds on the arms from reaching them. At any rate, the voltages on these lines are so high, birds avoid even approaching a single conductor in mid span like they do on lower voltage systems. This is due to the corona dischar
The problem is obvious! (Score:1)
This can't be true (Score:2)
Fix the actual problem? (Score:2)
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Since we know that birds aren't real... (Score:2)
...these fires are obviously the result of LiPo battery failures.
Make America Rake Again (Score:2)
Squirrels have been doing this for decades (Score:2)
I guess now the birds are trying to get in on the action.
Linked publication seems to be incorrect (Score:1)
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Stop repeating statements he makes at his "news" conferences...plagiarism.