Are you sure? Doesn't the "smart edison bulb" design make it harder to dissipate heat to the casing, therefore making the LEDs get hotter compared to PCBs with LEDs surface mounted on them?
Anyway, if you want your ~~light bulbs~~any technology to last long, don't buy the "smart" variant. "Smart" usually means more components and/or more dependencies on interfaces, and more complexity, so a higher chance to fail.
How good of a conductor wood is depends on its state. If it is very dry and not salty, this should be safe (although he could have taken the piece of wood more at the end to increase the distance between him and the fence and the length=isolation through the piece of wood). If it is wet and salty, it might be dangerous.