As there are always birds on/around electricity lines… might this happen again?
I thought they had hefty insulators on the cable mounts to stop a short-circuit happening, but perhaps a flock of pigeons bridged the gap somehow?
I know nothing about electricity beyond the switch, but don’t you need an earth connection to be electrocuted?
Yes you do.
So it must have been a very big pigeon to be able to stretch between the live wire beyond the insulator to the body of the pylon which goes to earth. 
No. An Earth is unnecessary for electrocution . . .. any connection between live and neutral puts the full whack of current ..through the load and an earth leakage trip will never detect it .. . An Earth is an additional protection in the case that the person touches the Live and has not as yet touched the Neutral . . It also protects the person if they touch the Neutral before touching the live.. The Earth Leakage detectors are great devices and measures the difference between the currents lowing in both Live and Neutral wires ..which Should be the same . If it detects even a tiny imbalance it opens switches …
You will see flocks of birds happily sitting on on the wires of HT pylons without a care .. that’s because they are not touching any two wires . It would only be at the connection to a house that the wires would ever be close enough for a bird to bridge a gap
Dan beat me to it - no, you don’t.
It can leap within a certain distance from the wire to something that’s earthed. Can even be just if a bush or tree grows close to it and bird is on wire.
Sorry thread drift but we followed a car last night and the driver threw his fag end out and onto the road. My son honked his horn continuously and shouted at the driver, a tourist in the region from his reg plate too and should know better. That is what we are fighting down here, a lot of ignorant stupid visitors; Grrrrrrr!
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What you describe is the behaviour of a Residual Current Device, not an Earth Leakage Curcuit Breaker.
ELCBs are no longer in use as RCDs have replaced them; those are much safer because they don’t need an earth connection to work.
As others have said, no you don’t, & nor do you need a neutral e.g. if the unfortunate pigeon managed to straddle across two phases of a domestic three phase supply it would receive an approx. 400V shock.
However, it would be unlikely to catch fire at that voltage, so I suspect this incident involved a shock from a high voltage supply.
The grid immediately before it’s transformed down to low (domestic) voltage runs at around 10-12kV & some of the transformers mounted on poles can have exposed phases at quite a close distances i.e. possibly a pigeon’s wingspan.
Absolutely. There are so many signs and adverts about it, you’d have to be blind to not notice.
I read yesterday that they’re thinking of putting ashtrays back in cars so that people don’t have to throw out cigarette butts.
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Am I right in thinking the fire by Carcassonne at the weekend was caused by a car catching fire and setting the roadside alight which then spread? It was horrendous seeing motorists on the news having to drive right close to. high flames and through thick smoke as they could not stop nor get off the motorway at that place.
That’s what we read, yes, a car on fire. They can’t have handled the motorway closure very well if that happened to drivers.
I didn’t know they’d stopped.
But there must remain a significant proportion of the population who still smoke, with regional variations! so it’s a good idea.
If I recall correctly, the “smoker’s pack” was an option when we bought our Karoq.
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