Hot Wire

Our Pal Moose, the absolute King of Electric Fence Practical Jokes sent me another story about about electric fences and I was reminded of one of my fence stories I don't think I've written about before.

When we first got horses we had this real thin plastic wire around our pasture. The charger we were using was called a wed burner; meaning if something came into contact with the wire it would burn it away to eliminate the short. We didn't have gates at that time, but we used the hot wires on hooks to close the animals in.

One evening we put the horses away and one of the gate wires landed on the ground. We forgot to turn the charger off. We went up the road to visit with some friends and later noticed a lot of smoke in the direction of our house. We returned home to find a large patch of our August dry lawn had burned. Luckily my brother and sister-in-law were around and they though I was having a cook out until they saw the flames from their house. They rushed over and put the fire out, which at that time of the year could have been disastrous had it spread any further.

Since then check my fence lines at least once a week. I use smaller chargers these days, but even they can start fires.