Spontaneous town combustion

[zakur]

Story (http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/allnews/page.cfm?objectid=13937589&method=full&)I was just little things at first...a TV would smoulder, a mobile phone would catch fire.

But then it got worse - a whole lot worse.

Over three weeks fridges, washing machines, cookers and furniture all began bursting into flames for no reason. Twelve houses were badly damaged by blazes in the quiet village.

Now, with panic-stricken locals blaming evil spirits and calling for an exorcism, the mayor has ordered a full-scale evacuation.

Last night Italian TV showed people fleeing in tears while fireman rushed to fight yet another spontaneous blaze.

Engineers called to Canneto di Caronia, near Messina, Sicily, were baffled because the fires continued even when the power was cut off.

[...]

"People are blaming evil spirits and I am being asked to get the priest to perform an exorcism."

Civil protection chief Tullio Martella said: "What is going on here is like a scene from some paranormal film.

"The fires continued even when we cut power to the village to see if that was a possible cause."

"For the time being there is no scientific explanation and I have never heard of anything like this before."

[Goshawk]

"I have never heard of anything like this before."I have.

Pyromania--Symptoms. (http://psychcentral.com/disorders/sx88.htm)

[Kopji]

Oh, it's been a couple years.

This year's 'monkey man' mass paranoia adventure.
Mass Paranoia (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/2205194.stm)

Go away Satan! shoo! shoo! begone!!!

There, all safe now. How lucky the priests were around to save the day. :rub:

[Capt.Nemo]

I dreamt up a possible cause/solution to this mystery.

From the original post I gathered that most, if not all, of the fires were started in or by electrical equipment. Would that not suggest that someone from the local utility company turned the dial a tad too far in the last repair/tuning session for the village transforming station. A few volts more than rated would interfere with some appliances and greater deviations would probably start fires when overloaded wires smolder and burn.

A similar thing happened in my neighbourhood a few years ago. During some sort of maintenance work on the local transformer they had to turn off the power feed and replace it with a ridiculously large diesel generator. This worked well for most normal appliances, I think most people never noticed the switch.
However, in my apartment most of my lights went crazy. They turned on and off and dimmed themselves more or less at random. It turned out that the electronic touch-dimmers with which my apartment was riddled didn't care much for the slightly lower voltage of the generator.
A real ghost in the machine, don't you agree?

Now, move this incident to a nicely modernised, turn-of-the-last-century house as the clock strikes midnight and you'll have a great base for a ghost story.

cheers!
/Nemo (no, not the fish :-)

[Kopji]

The voltage would not need to change, probably a small deviation in frequency would do it.

I'd still go for the mass paranoia though.

[teddygrahams]

Originally posted by Kopji
The voltage would not need to change, probably a small deviation in frequency would do it.

I'd still go for the mass paranoia though.

How would a deviation in frequency do this, especially a small deviation ?

Is this a country that doesn't use fuses or circuit breakers ?

[waitew]

Originally posted by teddygrahams


How would a deviation in frequency do this, especially a small deviation ?

Is this a country that doesn't use fuses or circuit breakers ?

What?...No fuses or circuite breakers..please explain.