Inverter panel fire under solar panels near Farmington

What happened

Firefighters were called at about 2.45 p.m. on a Friday to a grass fire underneath solar panels on Route 116, about a quarter of a mile west of Farmington. The Farmington Community Fire Protection District said an inverter panel was burning, and photographs showed the inverter was severely damaged. The panels had to be de-energised, and crews put the fire out with a dry chemical extinguisher rather than water. No estimate of the cost of damage was available.

Contributing factors

The fire district identified a burning inverter panel as the source of the grass fire. Why the inverter panel was burning was not reported.

Lessons learned

1. A fire reported as grass under a solar array may have started in electrical equipment, so identifying the component matters.
2. Responders may need to de-energise the array before suppression.
3. Where water is not used, a dry chemical extinguisher is one option that put this fire out. The cause of the inverter fire and the cost of damage were not reported.

Source

25newsnow.com