Reported oil leak sparks fire at Kwagga substation in Pretoria West
Dec 2019Published 19 Sept 2026Responsible editor: Chief Editor
- Where
- Kwagga substation in Pretoria West, Tshwane area, South Africa
- What
- Fire broke out in early hours of 10 December 2019
- Response
- Firefighters dispatched at about 3.30am fought blaze with foam
- Cause
- Oil leak reported as cause
- Outcome
- Outage affected surrounding areas and telephone lines
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What happened
A fire broke out at the Kwagga substation in Pretoria West, in the Tshwane area of South Africa, in the early hours of 10 December 2019. An emergency services spokesperson was reported as attributing the fire to an oil leak. Firefighters were dispatched at about 3.30am and were fighting the blaze with foam. Surrounding areas including Rosslyn, Atteridgeville, Soshanguve and Pretoria North were affected by the resulting outage, and the city said telephone lines were down because of the outage. The source gives no information on injuries, fatalities, the extent of damage or how long restoration took.
Contributing factors
An oil leak at the substation was reported as the cause. No investigation findings have been published, so the cause should be treated as provisional.
Lessons learned
- Oil-filled substation equipment needs routine leak checks, as escaping oil supplies fuel near live plant.
- Substation fires can disrupt services beyond power supply, such as telephone lines in several districts.
- Oil-fed electrical fires require foam and agreed access plans with local fire services in advance.
More lessons on outages, backup supply and restoration, fire suppression and firefighting, from every incident on the register.
Not yet known
- Extent of damage to the substation
- Time taken to restore supply
- Equipment model and age
This entry is updated when these are reported. Get an alert for the next one like it.
Source
This site has 3 entries on the register: every incident at Kwagga substation.
Other entries that name Kwagga
Published 2026-09-19. Written from public reporting. Descriptive, not investigative. See the data accuracy disclaimer.
