All of us live in the world that we do because others risk their lives to provide for us.

They are installing new power lines in front of one of my friend's homes, and he was out there watching them with his son when a fire erupted. It's unclear if it was a transformer or the bucket truck itself, but a lineman was trapped up in the air in the fire. He was saved with minor injuries due to the quick thinking and action of one of his coworkers who was operating a second boom.

Nice catch! Hope everyone is OK.

flashguy

Thank you for posting this. It hits a little close to home for me because my father was a lineman for 43 years.
Over the years he was involved in rescuing a few co workers.

I am curious to know why the lift became inoperable at the same time as the fire. The controls in the basket can be overridden and be controlled from the base of the boom pedestal. I am glad he is okay.

Just a guess, but at the beginning of the video, there are a couple of items dropped from the pole. It looks like a restringing operation because of the scab arms and rollers at the top of the pole. Looking closely, it looks like a temporary arm is attached to the pole on the far side. It would also make sense that a scab arm was also attached to the bucket side. The phases are obviously energized as they are in guts. It appears that the phases on the bucket side contacted the what looks like a transformer or some other type of apparatus and possibly cross-phased and caused some sort of transformer fire. Working the controls from the base is possible, assuming the helpers or journeymen are not trying to avoid the falling burning material or running for cover as the next hazard would be falling conductor.
Just my 2 cents.
Lineman

No panic. Good work by him and the crew. The flunkies on the ground weren't much help. Run! They were probably county