Melbourne’s fire brigade is investigating three recent house fires to see if they might have been started by smart meters.
Melbourne’s fire brigade is investigating three recent house fires to see if they might have been started by smart meters.
The fires have broken out in the past month in domestic electrical switchboards connected to smart meters – of which there are now around 850,000 in Victorian premises
Metropolitan Fire Brigade chief fire officer Shane Wright said it was unlikely the smart meters were to blame, but that it was the brigade’s duty to investigate any trend and the cause of any incidents it attended. The brigade responds to about 26 fires in switchboards each year.
The brouhaha sparked a scornful report by Richard Chirgwin on The Register Web site, headed “Killer smart meters torch Aussie homes”.
“Even a statistically-insignificant association is bound to get tongues wagging in Australia, because Victoria’s 850,000 smart meters feature ingredients guaranteed to send the echo chamber aflame: they were installed under a government-sponsored program, the government that sponsored the program was Labor-led, and there are house fires to provide handy TV images,” commented Chirgers, drawing a parallel with the Federal Government’s pink batts program.
