Displaced people to blame for Marie Street substation fire in Ferndale

City Power has blamed displaced people for causing a fire at a substation in Ferndale that left several suburbs without electricity for several hours.

However, City Power said no infrastructure had been damaged during the fire which seems to contradict what the ward councillor said he was told by the utility’s personnel, especially as he believed something must have been damaged for the power to go off at all.

Randpark Ridge, Bromhof, Sundowner, Boskruin and other smaller suburbs in block 14 were without electricity following the incident on Marie Street.

“We found that a group of vagrants sleeping around there burnt rubble which started the fire,” said City Power spokesperson Isaac Mangena. “They ran away.”

He said the transformer chamber caught fire but it did not reach critical areas inside the chamber.

“City Power infrastructure was not affected… And none of the customers [were] affected by this… This could have been worse, as it has in the past when fires were [started] inside the chambers, under the pylons and transmission lines tripping the main substation, and when rubble is burnt around the streetlights melting the whole light structure and cables inside.”

Mangena said City Power relied on Metro police to enforce laws on open fires, especially around essential infrastructure.

Ward 134 councillor Devon Steenkamp said it took several hours the next day to restore power to some areas that were still off due to a fault at the Hawken Avenue switching station.

“It is a City Power station on Marie Street but the fire caused a short on the network which caused the entire Eskom Randburg Substation to trip – a safety mechanism,” Steenkamp said.

This seems to contradict what Mangena said and Randburg Sun has asked Mangena if no infrastructure was damaged by the fire, why the electricity went off or if there was a short in the first place.

His comments will be published as soon as they are made.