Substation fire leaves thousands without power in Ballard and Magnolia
Jan 2018Published 17 Oct 2026Responsible editor: Chief Editor
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Companies named in this entry: Seattle City Light
What happened
On Friday 19 January 2018, at about 9:40pm, a fire in a substation caused a power outage in the Magnolia and Ballard areas of Seattle. Areas south of the ship canal and west of the Ballard Bridge were also affected. The outage began with around 3,700 people without power, rising to nearly 12,000 at its peak. By about 10:30pm, around 1,200 people had had their power restored. Seattle City Light said there was no estimate for when the fix would be complete. The source gives no full restoration time.
Contributing factors
The source states that the outage was caused by a fire in a substation. The cause of the fire is not reported.
Lessons learned
- Substation fires can cut power to thousands of people at once, so operators should plan for rapid load transfer and isolation of faulted equipment.
- Utilities should publish outage status and restoration estimates early and keep them updated.
- Operators should inspect substation equipment for overheating and fire risk.
More lessons on electrical protection and isolation, outages, backup supply and restoration, maintenance, inspection and ageing assets, from every incident on the register.
Source
Published 2026-10-17. Written from public reporting. Descriptive, not investigative. See the data accuracy disclaimer.
