A fallen power line set cars ablaze after a heavy storm in Michigan, with a subsequent explosion knocking out power for an entire city block.
We’re well into summer, and that means summer storms are rolling across the Midwest. Some of those storms are bringing heavy rains and even stronger winds which are enough to cause havoc on city infrastructure.
One such storm passed through Ann Arbor, Michigan last weekend. On Friday, a wicked thunderstorm had winds strong enough to knock power lines down. And if that wasn’t bad enough those power lines remained live and set fire to a pair of parked cars that were sitting beneath them.
At around 8 PM on July 19th, firefighters were called to handle a blaze that had broken out in downtown Ann Arbor after live power lines somehow ignited a parked car. Autoblog reports that it was likely a Volvo S60, which then managed to ignite a second car: a Volvo XC60 SUV. Guess this was a family of Volvo fans.
The entire episode was caught on film by a curious bystander from her balcony. First there a green flash as the power lines were knocked off their poles. Then, a huge fire erupted from the parked Volvo as the cable ignited various combustibles within the vehicle. Then the second car went up, followed by a massive explosion that knocked out power for an entire block.
You can see in the photos over on MLive that the explosion also did damage to neighboring buildings, but most of the destruction was confined to the two cars that were left little more than burnt-out husks.
What’s interesting here is how these cars went from covered in rain to on fire, and then to explode within the span of a few minutes. That sort of thing normally doesn’t happen in real life and is confined to the fantasy land of Hollywood action films. The power of electricity is apparently all you need to get a car good and explody.