Smart meters not linked to electrical fires: Fire chief
Posted August 17, 2012 6:07 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
SURREY (NEWS1130) – Surrey’s fire chief can’t find any evidence to suggest smart meters pose a fire risk.
Len Garis teamed up with SFU researcher Dr. Joe Clare after it was reported that the meters may have caused electrical fires in a couple of homes in BC.
“Concerns were expressed about the safety of these devices and I had a bit of difficulty understanding if this was anecdotal or fact based,” Garis says.
Garis and Clare pulled fire loss information records from over a two year period and analyzed the data to determine whether there was any cause for concern.
“There are only two fires that are remotely associated with them and we still don’t know the actual cause,” Garis says. “Even if they were [associated with smart meters], that’s one in 750,000 deployments of meters and that is not a bad record.”
There have also been reports of smart meters causing fires in California and Ontario, but Garis says they are a different model.
The report, commissioned by BC Hydro, examined homes between July 2010, and June 2012
