Texas Wind Turbine Catches Fire Due to Possible Lightning Strike

Have you seen a wind turbine catch on fire?

Well, that is just what happened on Friday afternoon in North Texas. According to officials, it is believed that a lightning strike hit one of the massive structures on a wind farm and that is what caused the wind turbines to go up in flames.

As you can see in the next few videos from witnesses the wind turbine is clearly on fire and disintegrating.

While officials believe the cause of the fire was lightning they can’t be 100% sure. There was plenty of lightning in the area at the time of the fire so it is a pretty good guess that lightning was the main cause of the fire.

The Crowell Volunteer Fire Department responded to the fire but unfortunately, there was not much they could do to put the fire out.

"We’re not equipped to handle that kind of fire. Nobody in the area really is to speak of," Fire Chief Perry Shaw said.

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So crews from the Crowell Volunteer Fire Department let the fire in the wind turbine burn out itself.

"We’ve done training with the wind farm company, and they are not safe to approach during that scenario. There weren’t any people in danger of being hurt, so we let the fire do what it is going to do," Shaw said.

It is estimated that there were 800 gallons of oil in the gearbox and around 1,300 gallons of mineral oil in the ground-level transformer. This exacerbated the fire and caused the black smoke that is seen in the videos.