How to Burn Down Your House
 

:eek:

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/134/3...4bf17487_o.jpg

man, that's a cool picture. plugging in and unplugging high load appliances can sometimes cause a small arc that isn't very noticeable, but apparently will photograph very well with the right exposure settings. :) Again, very cool picture.

Nope. Not caused by a high load appliance. That wouldn't create the streaks and spots. Those are caused by metal vaporizing. ;)

Good guess though.

When we were young, my younger brother used to get a kick out of stuffing a safety pin or paperclip into the upstairs hallway electrical outlet. He'd get zapped, sparks would shoot for a couple of seconds, and eventually the breaker would pop. Impressive light show, but never any fire.

:bigtu: Very close to how this was done, though no breaker popped.

No fire, but it makes for a nice thread title. ;)

Yeah if I had to guess how it was done, I'd say shorted lamp cord.

You might want to look into a quicker acting breaker. That's scary.

Not so scary once you realize that the plug was shorted using a strand of wire from a piece of 22 AWG I had lying around. It doesn't take much current to vaporize a piece of copper thinner than a hair. ;)