A lesson learned today!

[longcruise]

I went to my bench a few minutes ago looking for a pencil. The bench is a huge mess from having done many little projects over the past few weeks. I picked up the pencil you can see in the second picture and started to pull it out from underneath the accumulated mess. Immediately my eye caught a flash and I saw that a piece of fine steel wool on top of those blue handled pliers was burning. I'm not sure how exactly the contacts came about but that small charging plug and the pair of pliers were involved. Had i just grabbed the pencil and walked away without noticing, . . . . Well it could have gone very badly.

Keep you bench clean and unplug things when not in use!

 

[Zonie]

The steel wool made contact with the center terminal and the outer metal area of the charger plug at the same time.
It doesn't take much electrical power to start steel wool burning.

Glad to hear you spotted it and got things under control.

 

[Hatchet-Jack]

I've used steel wool as tinder. It will take a spark from a ferrocerium rod. I'm glad you noticed it was burning.

 

[Carbon 6]

Yikes!

 

[Kansas Jake]

Wow, who would have suspect that to happen. Thanks for sharing.

 

[rafterob]

Thankfully I have always been a neat freak when it comes to my tools and such. I seem to be an anomaly in my family in that regard. Good that it was not a catastrophe.

 

[Carbon 6]

Wow, who would have suspect that to happen. Thanks for sharing.

Suspected? yes.
Noticed ? questionable.
I've seen lots of electrical fires. My usual is to unplug things not in use.

 

[Col. Batguano]

Accidents like that are just so easy to have happen. Oily rags, compost heaps, loading from a flask, running with scissors, and now we have to add steel wool to the list. I swear life was a lot safer when all we had to worry about was getting eaten by a T-Rex.

 

[Hatchet-Jack]

Another really dangerous one is dryer lint. Many house fires are due to a build up of dryer lint in the vent pipe.

 

[SDSmlf]

I went to my bench a few minutes ago looking for a pencil. The bench is a huge mess from having done many little projects over the past few weeks. I picked up the pencil you can see in the second picture and started to pull it out from underneath the accumulated mess. Immediately my eye caught a flash and I saw that a piece of fine steel wool on top of those blue handled pliers was burning. I'm not sure how exactly the contacts came about but that small charging plug and the pair of pliers were involved. Had i just grabbed the pencil and walked away without noticing, . . . . Well it could have gone very badly.

Keep you bench clean and unplug things when not in use!

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When I was a kid I used to use steel wool to clean the oxidation/rust off off of my electric train tracks. Always thought it was neat the way the steel wool burned if the power was on. At the time never considered it dangerous. Different time back then. In Scouts, steel wool and flashlight batteries were an emergency fire starter.

 

[Omahkapi'si]

Glad you are safe.

 

[dragnetbill]

I went to my bench a few minutes ago looking for a pencil. The bench is a huge mess from having done many little projects over the past few weeks. I picked up the pencil you can see in the second picture and started to pull it out from underneath the accumulated mess. Immediately my eye caught a flash and I saw that a piece of fine steel wool on top of those blue handled pliers was burning. I'm not sure how exactly the contacts came about but that small charging plug and the pair of pliers were involved. Had i just grabbed the pencil and walked away without noticing, . . . . Well it could have gone very badly.

Keep you bench clean and unplug things when not in use!

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Phone charging cord by any chance? Could be the new definition of, "I've got a hot call coming in."

 

[mushka]

Life is not safe. I don't know where we get the idea that it is.

 

[longcruise]

Suspected? yes.
Noticed ? questionable.
I've seen lots of electrical fires. My usual is to unplug things not in use.

That's my new "usual" as well.

Phone charging cord by any chance? Could be the new definition of, "I've got a hot call coming in."

Not for phone, it was for a portable drill.

Zonie's conclusion makes the most sense in terms of how it happened.