A wind farm lost one of its turbines after a lightning strike on Friday reportedly caused it to catch fire in Crowell, Texas, according to Fox Weather.
Video footage showed the fiery turbine still spinning as it disintegrated into ash:
The turbine eventually stopped moving as the flames grew and dark smoke filled the sky.
“Doppler radar indicated there was plenty of lightning strikes around the Foard City wind facility before firefighters received the call about the high-altitude fire,” the Fox article said.
The Crowell Volunteer Fire Department arrived at the scene. However, Fire Chief Perry Shaw explained there was not much that crews could do in that situation.
“We’re not equipped to handle that kind of fire. Nobody in the area really is to speak of,” Shaw noted.
The incident happened as authorities said 99 percent of the state was suffering from different levels of drought. In addition, there were multiple active wildfires, ABC 13 reported Wednesday:
Per the Fox article, there were approximately 800 gallons of oil in the gearbox and nearly 1,300 gallons of mineral oil in the transformer, causing the smoke to appear so dark.
According to the facility operator, Innergex Renewable Energy, all employees were deemed safe after the incident.
“We’ve done training with the wind farm company, and they are not safe to approach during that scenario. There weren’t any people in danger of being hurt, so we let the fire do what it is going to do,” Shaw noted.
A similar incident occurred in 2016 when a West Texas thunderstorm sparked a massive blaze at an oil storage facility outside Ozona, Breitbart News reported at the time.
Video footage showed the fire engulfing what appeared to be a building:
“The location was so remote that it took over 30 minutes for firefighters to arrive,” the outlet said.
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