Fire at Pepco substation in Silver Spring, Maryland
Apr 2024Published 31 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): Pepco
What happened
On 29 April 2024, Montgomery County Fire and Rescue Services (MCFRS) responded to a report of smoke coming from a building at the PEPCO substation at 4100 Colie Drive in Silver Spring, Maryland. Responding crews found a conductor on fire. MCFRS scaled back its operations and handed the scene over to PEPCO, which attended the site. On the same day, The MoCo Show reported several reports of lights flickering across Montgomery County, with multiple reports from Olney including outages. At the time of publication, it was unclear whether the substation fire and the flickering lights were connected.
Contributing factors
The cause of the conductor fire was not reported. Whether the fire was linked to the flickering lights and outages was not established.
Lessons learned
- Where a fire occurs at an energised substation, the asset owner should attend quickly and agree a clear handover from the fire service, so that the owner controls isolation and making safe.
- Voltage disturbances reported by the public, such as flickering lights, should be checked against substation equipment faults to establish or rule out a link early.
- Operators should avoid presenting unconfirmed links between incidents as fact, and should state clearly what is still being investigated.
More lessons on fire suppression and firefighting, emergency response and public communication, investigation and fleet-wide checks, from every incident on the register.
Source
Other entries that name Pepco
Published 2026-10-31. Written from public reporting. Descriptive, not investigative. See the data accuracy disclaimer.
