My power bar melt

[gregzz4]

Originally Posted by Samw

Would a GFCI help in this case?

http://www.canadiantire.ca/en/pdp/ma...l#.VFLemK0QGrc

Yes, GFCI never hurts (in most cases) but wouldn't have helped in this situation (or at least not until the internals melted so much that they arced, and even then it's not reliable). A house fire is more imminent at this point.
Those home-use powerbars can't handle MHs
The internals aren't built to handle much more than 5A per outlet (IMHO). Take one apart and you'll see what I mean.
Most of those bars are only rated for 13A, which is 1560 watts @ 100%
Take off a ceiling of 20% (for draw and such) and you're down to less than 1250 watts. And that's for the whole powerbar.
Now add up what each item you're plugging into it and see what you get.
Nevermind the fact that, spread out over the bar, each outlet can now only handle just over 300 watts (relatively speaking), and you'll get a meltdown if something is drawing more than 300 watts - in theory