Substation fire causes blackout in Forest Hill
Residents on the scene said they saw smoke coming from the top of the vandalised substation.
Most of Forest Hill was without power after a fire broke out at the Leonard Street substation on May 9, causing delays for learners and residents.
Residents said they saw smoke coming from the top of the vandalised substation. The fire broke out at about 17:30 because of a blown transformer.
The principal of Forrest High School, Shaffy Steven, said it was difficult for them because they had no power, which caused delays for the school.
“When we called City Power, they promised to fix the problem overnight, which they did not. We couldn’t make copies and had to run around making copies in neighbouring schools because of the substation’s burst.
“A similar incident occurred in January, but it was not on fire, and City Power came to repair whatever was stolen,” he said.
According to some community members who were affected, there was load-shedding. The power came back on around 14:00, which went off a few minutes after.
“We filed a complaint with City Power before 16:00 and the fire at the substation began around 17:30.
“Someone with an unknown title arrived with a bakkie, but no card or uniform to show they were from City Power. They checked and then left without saying anything to us.”
The spokesperson of City Power, Isaac Mangena, said a chamber in the substation that caught fire after load-shedding caused the outage.
“We advise our customers to switch off all appliances, especially geysers and pool pumps during load-shedding to avoid overloading when power has to be restored, which delays full supply restorations.
“Also note that during the higher stages of load-shedding, those blocks that would be on, we request customers to use electricity sparingly.
“During load-shedding, our teams are not able to locate the faults, conduct tests and do repairs,” said Mangena.
