Seems like these fireballs falling to earth are a common occurrence now....
They say people will witness, on average, about one fireball in their lifetime. I’ve already seen mine (duration of about one second in my field of view).
We just have a lot more video cameras nowadays.
I think this may be part of the "fun" that comes with 2012. Our solar system passes through the ecliptic plan of our galaxy at that time. I suspect we are seeing more debris aligned along the ecliptic plane in the form of a higher frequency of meteors. There might be other "interesting" effects as we cross as well.