Transformer fire at Randfontein substation cuts power to suburbs

An explosion and fire occurred at a substation in Randfontein, South Africa, on the morning of Saturday 6 April 2019. One of the transformers caught fire and power was lost across several suburbs. Emergency services attended the scene to extinguish the flames. According to the Rand West City Local Municipality, it took at least eight hours, with manpower and electricians from both Eskom and the municipality, to restore supply, with one transformer returned to service. Power was restored to most affected suburbs, though some residents reported they were still without electricity. The municipality said new transformers would be installed during that week. At the time of reporting the cause of the fire had not been determined; the municipality confirmed only that a transformer had burnt. No injuries were reported in the source.

Not reported. The cause of the transformer fire had not been determined at the time of reporting; the municipality stated only that a transformer had burnt.

1. A single transformer failure at a distribution substation can cause an explosion and fire and remove supply from multiple suburbs at once.
2. Restoration can depend on coordinated work between municipal electricians and the national utility, so contact routes and mutual aid arrangements should be agreed in advance.
3. Returning even one transformer to service can restore most load, so switching plans and spare transformer availability should be reviewed for substations serving large residential areas.
4. Where a cause is not established at the time of an outage, operators should record and later publish findings so that repeat failure modes can be identified.

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