- SYDNEY (Reuters) - An Australian
man built up a 40,000-volt charge of static electricity in his clothes
as he walked, leaving a trail of scorched carpet and molten plastic and
forcing firefighters to evacuate a building.
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- Frank Clewer, who was wearing a woolen shirt and a synthetic
nylon jacket, was oblivious to the growing electrical current that was
building up as his clothes rubbed together.
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- When he walked into a building in the country town of
Warrnambool in the southern state of Victoria Thursday, the electrical
charge ignited the carpet.
-
- "It sounded almost like a firecracker," Clewer
told Australian radio Friday.
-
- "Within about five minutes, the carpet started to
erupt."
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- Employees, unsure of the cause of the mysterious burning
smell, telephoned firefighters who evacuated the building.
-
- "There were several scorch marks in the carpet,
and we could hear a cracking noise -- a bit like a whip -- both inside
and outside the building," said fire official Henry Barton.
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- Firefighters cut electricity to the building thinking
the burns might have been caused by a power surge.
-
- Clewer, who after leaving the building discovered he
had scorched a piece of plastic on the floor of his car, returned to seek
help from the firefighters.
-
- "We tested his clothes with a static electricity
field meter and measured a current of 40,000 volts, which is one step shy
of spontaneous combustion, where his clothes would have self-ignited,"
Barton said.
-
- "I've been firefighting for over 35 years and I've
never come across anything like this," he said.
-
- Firefighters took possession of Clewer's jacket and stored
it in the courtyard of the fire station, where it continued to give off
a strong electrical current.
-
- David Gosden, a senior lecturer in electrical engineering
at Sydney University, told Reuters that for a static electricity charge
to ignite a carpet, conditions had to be perfect.
-
- "Static electricity is a similar mechanism to lightning,
where you have clouds rubbing together and then a spark generated by very
dry air above them," said Gosden.
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- © Reuters 2005. All Rights Reserved.
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