Squirrel causes transformer fire and power outage in Signal Hill

What happened

On the morning of Saturday 17 November 2018, residents in parts of Signal Hill, Cal Heights and Bixby Knolls, California, lost power from about 7:45 a.m. The outage was caused by an isolated transformer fire in the Southern California Edison yard at the corner of Spring Street and Cherry Avenue in Signal Hill. Signal Hill Police Department said a squirrel had caused the fire. By the time of the report the outage was about 75 percent restored, and work was expected to be complete by 9 a.m.

The article does not give the number of customers affected, the damage to the transformer, or the equipment involved. The article does not mention any injuries.

Contributing factors

Animal contact with energised equipment, as reported by the Signal Hill Police Department. The article gives no further detail on how the squirrel reached the equipment or on protective measures at the yard.

Lessons learned

1. Check that outdoor transformer yards have animal guards and insulating covers on exposed bushings and connections, particularly where squirrels and other wildlife are common.
2. Record animal-caused faults as a recurring cause and target inspections and guarding at those sites.
3. Give customers a timed restoration estimate and regular updates during an outage.

More lessons on electrical protection and isolation, maintenance, inspection and ageing assets, outages, backup supply and restoration, from every incident on the register.

Source

lbpost.com