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Grid infrastructureSouth AfricaEIR-2551

Series of substation fires disrupts power in Amanzimtoti, eThekwini

Dec 2024Published 25 Oct 2026Responsible editor: Chief Editor

SignificantElectricalProvisionalNext update 25 Oct
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Companies named in the reporting of this entry (being named is not a finding of fault): eThekwini Municipality

What happened

Over about two months to mid-December 2024, five electricity substations in wards 90 and 97 of the eThekwini Municipality caught fire or exploded, according to a report in The Citizen. In October the Dan Pienaar Road substation in Amanzimtoti exploded, leaving residents without electricity for two days. In November the Willow Creek Place substation in Isipingo and the Doonside substation caught fire within six days of each other. On 8 December the Almond and Radbourne roads substation in Warner Beach exploded, leaving residents in the greater Kingsburgh area without power.

On 11 December the Poinsettia Place substation in Astra Park caught alight. A local councillor said technicians could not pinpoint the cause of the Dan Pienaar Road fire. The Astra Park outage came during a wider water outage on the South Coast, and many Kingsburgh residents spent two days without water and electricity.

Contributing factors

The municipality said substations catch fire or explode for many reasons, some of which cannot be controlled. The most common cause it cited is a fault within the system that leads to electrical arcing, which generates intense heat and can ignite nearby materials. The cause of the Dan Pienaar Road fire could not be pinpointed at the time. No cause was reported for the other substation fires.

Lessons learned

  1. Thermal imaging and regular inspection of switchgear, busbars and connections can reveal loose or deteriorating joints before an arcing fault develops.
  2. Maintaining clearances and removing combustible material around substation equipment limits the spread of fire from an arc.
  3. Where several units fail within a short period, operators should test for common causes such as equipment batch, maintenance practice or environmental ingress, and share the findings publicly.
  4. Restoration plans should anticipate linked outages, such as water and power failing together, and keep residents informed.

More lessons on detection and monitoring, spacing, layout and fire spread, emergency response and public communication, from every incident on the register.

Source

citizen.co.za

Published 2026-10-25. Written from public reporting. Descriptive, not investigative. See the data accuracy disclaimer.

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