Wind Farm Fires Are Much More Common Than We Thought

Unsurprisingly, when it comes to wind turbines behaving badly, blade failure is the No. 1 cause of accidents. What is less expected is that the second leading cause of disaster are turbines going up in flames, according to a new study.

Wind-turbine fires are a "big problem that is not currently being fully reported," say a team of researchers from London, Edinburgh, and Sweden. How's that? Well, after conducting a survey of the world's wind farms—which involved sifting through government documents, news reports, and literature from anti-wind-turbine groups—they found fires to be underreported by as much as 10 times. Instead of the publicly reported average of 11.7 conflagrations a year, they believe wind farms suffer more than 117 fires on an annual basis, they write in the Fire Safety Journal.