Flat packing a wind turbine - GIF

[PJs]

Interesting that 2 of those towers are on fire. The one in the back is billowing smoke but can't see any flames. Wonder what kind of drain/surge would cause 2 to go at the same time. I think the core of the blades are polystyrene and the likely cause of the swirls...but what cause the blade to catch fire at the tip? Burning from the inside out?

[Frank S]

PJs the only thing I can think of that could have started a fire in the tip of the blade would have been a lightening strike if the lightening had struck the generator just as the blade passed through the energy field, That very well could account for the second generator burning as well multiple strikes are not unheard of in a small area. and those turbines should be spaced several 100 yards apart
A large enough strike could have burned out the turbine brake as well which may account for only the 1 turbine spinning the others appear to be locked down.

[PJs]

PJs the only thing I can think of that could have started a fire in the tip of the blade would have been a lightening strike if the lightening had struck the generator just as the blade passed through the energy field, That very well could account for the second generator burning as well multiple strikes are not unheard of in a small area. and those turbines should be spaced several 100 yards apart
A large enough strike could have burned out the turbine brake as well which may account for only the 1 turbine spinning the others appear to be locked down.

Kind of makes sense about a lightning strike and know they do stir up some static electricity. I think the blade shells are carbon fiber but quite sure they are seriously grounded in multiple points. But when I think about the tip velocity of this size turbine being probably 100mph+ (~50m/s) the odds of a lightning strike to a moving tip at that speed seems astronomical. If it were lightning strikes (multiple) those odds would go up exponentially, although the second one only appears to be burning at the Nacelle.

Based on the almost horizontal smoke trail and the 'Apparent' velocity of it, plus the fact that all other turbines are stopped with blades rotated to 0° (wind direction), the other possibility is a very high and gusty wind speeds and a probably failure of the stall systems on the two systems. Additionally these seem to be older systems based on the blade shape and look Nacelle's and may not have a quality maintenance history.

Once again we don't have much to go on with a gif with no details (an interesting pic for sure) but it's kind of fun to question what we are seeing.

PJ