[editor-surveyor]

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>> “ But there would be evidence of superheated plasma” <<

There have been many videos of plasma trails during the CA fires posted to youtube, but they seem to get taken down quickly.

The aerial photography of the post fire scenes show houses burned out but sheds next to the house remaining in several places.

And cars in the middle of a parking lot totally burned with wheels melted, which would be impossible from flying embers.

[palmer]

A rim is 8 kg. The energy required to melt the wheel is 321 kJ times 8 or 2500 kJ. Let's assume a dwell time of one second on target and no losses. That means the battery pack needs to supply 2.5 MW. Something along these lines:

In order to melt the wheel, then melt the next wheel, then the engine, then the next car, etc there would need to be a continuous 2.5MW like the diesel generator shown. Weighs about 50 tons.