For Leonard Baskin

To his house the bodiless
Come to barter endlessly
Vision, wisdom, for bodies
Palpable as his, and weighty.

Hands moving move priestlier
Than priest's hands, invoke no vain
Images of light and air
But sure stations in bronze, wood, stone.

Obdurate, in dense-grained wood,
A bald angel blocks and shapes
The flimsy light; arms folded
Watches his cumbrous world eclipse

Inane worlds of wind and cloud.
Bronze dead dominate the floor,
Resistive, ruddy-bodied,
Dwarfing us. Our bodies flicker

Toward extinction in those eyes
Which, without him, were beggared
Of place, time, and their bodies.
Emulous spirits make discord,

Try entry, enter nightmares
Until his chisel bequeaths
Them life livelier than ours,
A solider repose than death's.

The universal path is a windy link
in reflections it bounces in dryness
the wood wounded with unknown
phases tainted with fists that hints

The bareness of the desert lays untold
roasted and unbroken in resistive dunes
torn and un-tuned in the rusty mirage
bareness reformed by the scorning sun

See those hungry eyes digging in hilled sands
the lost hope lusting for a love swayed to last
memories of the crux, the faded in between
the withering leaves burnt to grimy coal

The tidal waves erupts as pure bliss builds
such loneliness buried in ocean depths
kneeling at the mercies of the greenery
pending rejuvenation to harmonious trance

On the edge of the bridge toes tiptoeing
the cord unfurling in, over and within
waters paints in hues of silverly blue
a sacrifice to reign in the depths of the shore

To some the **** is an ugly invader.
To me it is a thing of beauty, determined and single minded,
Tall and proud amongst its colourful, more favoured bedfellows.

Resistive to the attempts of the zealous gardener to destroy it,
Poor relation amongst prize winning blooms.
It's beauty lies not in petals of dazzling rainbow hues,
But in its steadfast determination to fight back, year on year.

The **** is honest and unapologetic for its existence.
It does not await applause from shallow onlookers.
Confident on its journey .

I am the **** , with depths that others cannot see.
I will stand tall when others falter.
Their beauty will fade in time, outer shell that was once their saviour,wilted and dull.
My beauty, like the ****, lies within.

National Fire Protection Association (NFPA)
https://www.nfpa.org › fire-investigator › pres921gd
Be better prepared to conduct even the most complex investigations safely and provide more accurate, reliable conclusions with Fire Investigator: Principles and Practice to NFPA 921 and NFPA 1033.

NFPA 921
GUIDE FOR FIRE AND EXPLOSION INVESTIGATIONS [2021]
𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐃𝐢𝐬𝐜𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐲 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐒𝐜𝐢𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐒𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐭 𝐌𝐞𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐅𝐢𝐫𝐞𝐬
INTRODUCTION TO THE DISCOVERY OF RADIO FREQUENCY RADIATION AND THE RELATED BREAKDOWN OF ELECTRICAL WIRING INSULATION LEADING TO FIRE CAUSATION

Presented by:
Jim Brown, CCAI-CFI
Fire Forensics & Technology
Presented by
Dr. Robert Armstrong, PhD P.E.
Armstrong Engineering
Dr. Vytenis Babrauskas, PhD
Fire Science and Technology Inc.

𝗖𝗛𝗔𝗥𝗔𝗖𝗧𝗘𝗥𝗜𝗦𝗧𝗜𝗖𝗦 𝗢𝗙 𝗦𝗠𝗔𝗥𝗧 𝗠𝗘𝗧𝗘𝗥 𝗙𝗜𝗥𝗘𝗦 𝗙𝗥𝗢𝗠 𝗙𝗜𝗘𝗟𝗗 𝗢𝗕𝗦𝗘𝗥𝗩𝗔𝗧𝗜𝗢𝗡
Occur within 1 month to two years following initial replacement of analog
meter with smart meter
• Within 15 – 25 feet of smart meter
• Occur in continuous sections of branch circuit wiring, not at points of
connection or splices, not near staples, not in junction boxes
• No evidence of insect or rodent infestation
• Occur in void spaces (walls, ceilings) and in attics with no human activity
• Often small fires (5 – 10’ diameter)
• No correlation to service size or circuit loading
• No correlation to premises wiring age or material (Al or Cu)
• No correlation to significant weather events (lightning)
• No evidence of utility supply (distribution) system anomalies (voltage spikes)
• Fires cause typically listed as UNDETERMINED


5 STAGES LEADING TO FIRE
• 1st Stage: RF pulses (beams) away from meter in a specific pattern to send signals (data) to nearby meters in the “Daisy Chain”
• 2nd Stage: RF from meter bounces off “reflected” surfaces causing RF to “double/quadruple” in intensity (in terms of energy density measured as microwatts per square meter; μW/m2). The pulse bounces back and onto the oncoming pulse and intersects at a specific geometric focal point. If PVC insulation is present at that focal point, the RF energy can get converted to heat energy in the dielectric, causing micro fractures or bubbles in the polymer. The main effect is likely thermal, but the existing electric field
may accelerate the degradation of the polymer (PVC)
• 3rd Stage: Sufficient heating can either ignite the polymer directly,
or, more likely, first carbonize it. If PVC gets carbonized, then this
can be the initiation of arc tracking, and arc tracking can end up in
ignition.
• 4th Stage: If wood structural members are near/touching, this
resistive heating can initiate and sustain pyrolysis of wood.
• 5th Stage: Flaming combustion begins.


TYPES OF SMART METER FIRES
Smart-meter-caused fires can be grouped into three broad
categories:
1) Inadequate mechanical or electronic design of the meter.
• Example: Overheating component(s) inside meter; water ingress into
electronics due to poor sealing; inadequately-sized shut-off relays
causing fire upon remote re-energization; faulty Li-ion batteries (note
that mechanical meters do not need one).
2) Problems at the meter/base stab connections.
• This has nothing to do with the “smart” aspects. Usually due to an
untrained gorilla force-fitting the new meter onto the base.
3) Ignitions of wiring at some distance from the meter.
• This is the sole topic of our presentation today. #1 and #2 are fairly well
understood and not particularly controversial.

I wish I was a Tower
with a really pointy spire,
rising like the Burj Khalifa,
maybe even higher.

I would be so sharp
that all the burdens on my head
would fall apart, and fall away,
and leave me free of dread.

tall enough to rise above
my silly little fears,
hard enough and closed enough;
immune to shedding tears.

yes, I wish I was a Tower
so my soul would live
in something strong and permanent,
something resistive.

though it saddens me a lot,
sturdy Tower, I am not.

I'm more like something that the wind could carry as it went,
something small, and feeble, something like a Tent.