"Hot" ground wire

The ground strap from my Honda motor broke and somehow the tach drive cable became a dead short to positive and caught its insulation on fire. Lots of smoke and drama but little damage. Heat is resistance, ie resistance to flow as in a light bulb filament to 12V to ground. A bad connection can cause a hot cable as well as a device drawing mucho amps through an undersized 10G cable like a 1.7kW (at no load!) starter.