50 or 30 amp

I used to live in a neighborhood filled with 80 to 100 year old Monterrey pines.  When the wind got going during a rain storm, it was common for them to break about 2 meters up from the ground.  I saw and heard several fall.  It's not like the lumberjack cutting a tree with an nice key and a slow fall.  Within one block of my house, over the years there were several fatalities from the trees falling on houses.  

Moral of the story, it's better to match your conductor capacity and breakers even though the instances of fires are relatively rare.  Being trapped in a burning Pod doesn't sound like a very pleasant way to go.  The cost of putting in a breaker in the 30/50A dogbone is much less than the cost of starting a forest fire or your own funeral.  Ask PG&E about the cost of electric conductor fires.  Just a thought from a lay person.  This has been a very informative discussion.

The fact that they have not, and again, the complete lack of any data points I can find about occurrences, says it's a non issue.

Like walking in the woods.. a tree "can" fall on you.. but it doesn't happen often enough to keep us out of the woods..

Looks like we're in "violent agreement" at this point mcarter