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.

 

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.