Substation fire causes north-west Christchurch power outage

3 February 2010

Many residents and businesses in north-west Christchurch suburbs Bryndwr and Ilam were without power this morning after a small fire occurred at a substation on Wairakei Road.

The fire started in a cable that supplied a high voltage switching unit inside the substation at 8.40am, and another unit also suffered smoke damage. This resulted in a power outage to all customers supplied from that substation. No-one was injured as a result of the fire.

Orion Operations Manager Stuart Kilduff says about 1600 customers were affected by the power outage.

“Power was cut to the area affected at 8.40am this morning, and Orion’s control room staff and operators worked quickly to restore power to the area, with the majority of customers back on by 10.30am,” Mr Kilduff says.

Orion engineers will be working at the Wairakei Road substation throughout the day to fix the damaged equipment.