Substation pole fire causes citywide outage in Wadsworth

What happened

On 27 October 2025, a substation pole carrying a FirstEnergy transmission line caught fire near the point where Wadsworth, Ohio, receives its electrical supply. Police said the fire was believed to have caused a citywide outage that began at about 2 p.m. By just after 10.30 p.m., officials said a new utility pole was in place and FirstEnergy crews were framing it before coordinating with city substation crews to re-energise the line.

City officials said local crews would then restore substations and circuits in stages so load was not added too quickly. Power was expected around midnight. The outage initially affected the city's phone systems, and most traffic signals were not working. Police said the fault was not in the City of Wadsworth's own electric system.

Contributing factors

The cause of the pole fire was not reported. Officials linked the outage to a fire on a substation pole carrying a FirstEnergy transmission line at the city supply point, and said it was not a fault in the city's own electric system.

Lessons learned

1. A fault on the incoming transmission supply can black out a municipal network even when the city's own system is not the source.
2. Staged restoration, spreading load across circuits, reduces the risk of a further trip when supply returns.
3. Substation and transmission outages can disable phones and traffic signals, so fallback communications and clear public advice are needed.

Source

fox8.com