This not generator related but is power. Florida in hot and dry patch, suddenly no bad weather the power goes out, not that unusual with country living, usually fixed within a hour and usually tree limb. However I decide to call the power Co. automated report power loss, as this Monday the holiday. Few minutes later they call me back to say sir check your lines as you are the only reported outage in that area. So I check house main, then get in my RTV an check service drop box about 300 feet away look up at the lines all looks clear. Then I look down my driveway 900 feet to the road that power line follows and I see smoke. So I approach carefully as I can see the top of dead pine tree across the drive still hung in the air, thinking 16K volt line on ground has started a fire. As I get close enough to see the wires, the hot line has been pulled down to ground wire but not broke and the fuse to my drop on the street pole is blown. So safe to approach and inspect the fire. The grass under wires is burning about 20 circle but it has made its way back into the under growth of the pine stand and is picking up speed as it now has lots of fuel. So use cell call power company report line cause fire and call 911. 911 answers and it is the wrong county they transfer me. I deliver location, size of fire, growth rate, and it has not popped up yet. I drive over the grassy area to stop that but no way to get into wooded area. So I wait, that was a long 15 minutes. Two trucks show I inform them no downed wires and no hot lines the small truck with 350 gallon and 1.5 line jumps on it and two guys one feeding line and other walking right into it. Within 30 minutes they got it out the larger truck ran a line to small one to refill and continue wetting as they rake all the smoldering piles. Power company was 10 minutes behind fire trucks, he pulled behind the small fire truck went up in his boom cleared the tree inspected line and then waited roadside to get ok to reset breaker. All said and done I shuck every ones hand and thanked them for their fast and professional service and I was left with about 120 foot burn circle. Good thing I called the power company instead of just sitting and waiting. Now what I'm considering if I fired my gen and had all my hoses on single moveable reel I could have water on that spot within ten minutes.
