Substation fire leaves almost 2,000 homes without power in Little Stoke

What happened

On the morning of Tuesday 23 January 2018, residents in Little Stoke heard a loud bang and saw the street lose power shortly after 7am. Smoke and an orange glow were then seen coming from an electrical substation near Amberley Road and Clay Lane. Avon Fire and Rescue Service said it was called to a report of a fire involving the substation, and one crew from Patchway attended. Western Power Distribution (WPD) engineers arrived quickly but waited for the fire service to deal with the blaze.

At its height the outage affected homes in Filton, Little Stoke, Patchway, Stoke Gifford, Almondsbury and Alveston, with almost 2,000 homes left without power. Power was partly restored to most properties at around 9am, with more than 250 still without supply, and restoration was expected later that afternoon.

Contributing factors

Not reported. The source does not state what caused the substation fire.

Lessons learned

1. Where a substation fire is reported, the network operator should coordinate with the fire service so that engineers can make the site safe before work begins.
2. Operators should plan for staged restoration of supply, prioritising the largest affected groups of customers and giving clear, regular updates on the expected time of full restoration.
3. Local residents who report smoke or bangs from electrical equipment should be given clear advice on keeping away from the site, and operators should respond to these reports quickly.

More lessons on fire suppression and firefighting, outages, backup supply and restoration, emergency response and public communication, from every incident on the register.

Source

bristolpost.co.uk