Fire at unmanned Seoul substation cuts power to tens of thousands
Nov 2013Published 28 Oct 2026Responsible editor: Chief Editor
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Companies named in the reporting of this entry (being named is not a finding of fault): Korea Electric Power
What happened
At about 10.37pm on 30 November 2013, a fire broke out at an unmanned substation in Majang-dong, Seoul, operated by the Korea Electric Power Corporation (KEPCO). Firefighters sprayed water on the blaze, but the flames grew rapidly and spread to the roof of the building. The fire was brought under control in about 20 minutes. KEPCO and fire authorities reported that the insulating oil inside a transformer had ignited and exploded.
The outage cut electricity supply to about 30,000 households in the area, together with parts of the Jung-gu and Jongno-gu districts, for around 30 minutes, causing considerable inconvenience to residents. Because the substation was unmanned, no injuries were reported. The cause was under investigation at the time of reporting.
Contributing factors
Not confirmed. Initial reports link the fire to ignition of the transformer's insulating oil. The site was unmanned, so no staff were present when the fire started.
Lessons learned
- Transformer insulating oil is a fire hazard, so operators should review oil containment, fire suppression and fire-separation measures at unmanned substations.
- Unmanned sites need remote fire detection and alarms linked to a staffed control centre so that a fire is detected and escalated quickly.
- Substations in dense urban areas need network redundancy so that a single transformer fire does not cut supply to tens of thousands of customers for long periods.
More lessons on fire suppression and firefighting, detection and monitoring, outages, backup supply and restoration, from every incident on the register.
Source
Other entries that name Seoul
Published 2026-10-28. Written from public reporting. Descriptive, not investigative. See the data accuracy disclaimer.
