Comment by matthiasl

"What is the mechanism that increases risk for MOV-sourced fires in this arrangement?"

I wondered the same thing, and failed to find a satisfying explanation.

I can find plenty of reports of MOV fires, especially in situations where there's a persistent over-voltage, e.g. a 120 V site actually having closer to 240 V due to a floating neutral. But I don't see how chained MOVs make that worse in general. This blog post has some nice photos:

https://www.electrical-forensics.com/SurgeSuppressors/SurgeS...