Turbines on Fire, Wind Turbine Fires, Turbine Fires

Welcome to the Turbines on Fire site: this is by no means comprehensive of the perilous state of affairs with fires, lack of safety, lack of fire suppression mechanisms, lack of reporting of incidents.

If you google “wind turbines fires stories,” you come up with a staggering 3 million, five hundred thousand hits.

We welcome you to further browse in that ongoing sad saga of turbine disasters. Not only are fires allowed to uncontrollably expire, causing spitting of debris over vast areas, igniting further fires, the smoke of the plastics, resins, dangerous construction and maintenance chemicals are likewise not controlled, managed, and who knows the ultimate damages of these toxic plumes to people, children, animals, wildlife.

Wind turbine fires, accidents, and fatalities are nothing short of criminal. In this site we will provide a focus on these events that are deathly, with developers providing no protection to individuals or communities that have projects foisted on them. Examine this site and discover the truth about the lack of control, regulation, protection, for people, animals, landscapes, and communities. Any other industry would be and is required to have much more accountability.

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“To the Wind Industry and Wind Developers, rural America is no different than a third world country.

They enrich a few landowners, pay for a school or fire truck, persuade some of the locals with their good intentions, pit the rest of the people against each other, then they take what they want.”

– Eric Rosenbloom, Vermont Writer and science editor

Questions:

1. Why are there no REGULATIONS regarding safe placement of wind turbines, including fire protection equipment available at every turbine location?

2. Why have there been so many fatalities in the industry so much so that some are forced to close down due to excessive insurance costs and unwillingness of providers to insure?

3. What is the net loss from turbine fires to homes, livestock, land use, wildlife, air quality?

4. Are turbines the Breath of Life, or the Kiss of Death? See: Paul Gipe

5. What are the health implications of turbines on fire: where is reporting and recording of ill health, displacement, due to the burning chemicals and fumes and pollutants?

6. Is this an industry operating with virtually no controls?

What you don’t know about fires and turbines

1. There is no universal fire protection guideline that is enforceable. Remember, you may encounter “guidelines” but these are not necessarily “best practices,” nor are they ultimately useful

2. Fires from turbines are extremely toxic: we don’t know the impacts, nor will we ever, until we stop building them

3. Remember that we are dealing with high voltage machines, high in the sky, operating with hundreds of gallons of oil and lubricants, and subject to the varieties of weather, including lightening strikes and friction ignition from moving parts

4. The fumes can contain: lead, cadmium, flammable liquids or flammable gases, petroleum greases, tars, oils, oil-based paints, solvents, lacquers, or alcohols, toxic fumes and particulates for miles

5. Research suggests that the main ignition sources for fires in turbines are: Lightning strike * Electrical malfunction * Mechanical failure * Maintenance activities (like hot work etc.)

6. A major international study of more than 200,000 wind turbines installed across the world has revealed that the problem, which in 90% of cases leads to “substantial downtime” or the scrapping of the turbine, is being underplayed because official reports of incidents are either incomplete, biased or kept secret.

7. Hundreds of acres can be consumed by a single turbine on fire: “A wildfire in southern Washington that has burned more than 350 acres was caused by melting sections of a wind turbine that fell to the ground after the turbine’s generator caught fire, fire officials said.”

“Developers often claim that their technology is safe, and whenever there has been a wind turbine fire, or other form of serious accident, the developer is often quick to state that this is a rare occurence. Yet you only have to look at insurers reports to get a better understanding of accident rates and insurance claims made by wind energy developers to get a truer account of the health and safety aspect of turbines.

According to the IMIA Insurance of Wind Turbines report, a report that was compiled based on 15 years of the Wind Energy industry in Danish markets; Mechanical faults (blade failure and other faults) accounted for 40% of claims, Lightning accounted for 20% of claims, Fire accounted for 7% of claims, Storm accounted for 4% of claims, Liability for 0.5% of claims, and Others (LOP, short circuit, etc.) accounted for 28.5% of claims.

On 11 December 2011 the Daily Telegraph reported that RenewableUK confirmed that there had been 1500 wind turbine accidents and incidents in the UK alone in the past 5 years.

Caithness Wind Farms have compiled a detailed report on wind farm accidents throughout the UK and Internationally, by sourcing news articles, accident reports and insurance documents. They state that:

Fire is the second most common accident cause in incidents found. Fire can arise from a number of sources – and some turbine types seem more prone to fire than others. A total of 379 fire incidents were found.

The biggest problem with wind turbine fires is that, because of the turbine height, the fire brigade can do little but watch it burn itself out. While this may be acceptable in reasonably still conditions, in a storm it means burning debris being scattered over a wide area, with obvious consequences. In dry weather there is obviously a wider-area fire risk, especially for those constructed in or close to forest areas and/or close to housing or work places. Two fire accidents have badly burned wind industry workers.”

Europe’s Ill Wind

http://www.wind-watch.org/video-europe.php This video is available here via Blip.tv. It is about the views of people living near existing or planned ...

It’s not a matter of “if,” it’s a matter of when

June 5, 2011 by ottawawindconcerns http://northgowerwindactiongroup.wordpress.com/2011/06/05/wind-turbines-fires-not-if-when/ In the current issue of North American Clean Energy, a huge, tabloid-sized glossy magazine ...

Turbines in bushfire prone regions

http://www.wind-watch.org/news/2012/08/25/residents-countywide-should-urge-supervisors-to-ban-wind-turbines-in-fire-prone-regions/ very simple argument constructed from four points 1) Wind turbines are machines that are prone to mechanical failure. 2) ...