This paper focuses on methods to discriminate a temporary fault from a permanent one, and accurately determine fault extinction time in an extra high voltage (EHV) transmission line in a bid to develop a self-adaptive automatic reclosing scheme. Consequently, improper reclosing of the line onto a fault is avoided. The fault identification prior to reclosing is based on optimized artificial neural network associated with three different training algorithms. In addition, Taguchi's methodology is employed in optimizing parameters that significantly influence during and post-training performance of the neural network. A comparison of overall performance of the three algorithms, developed and coded in MATLABTM software environment, is also presented. To validate the work, the developed technique in a single machine infinite bus (SMIB) model has been tested by data obtained from benchmark IEEE 14-bus system model simulations. The results show the efficacy of the developed adaptive automatic reclosing method. ©2009 IEEE.