2 Workers Injured in Encino Fire

Two Los Angeles Department of Water and Power workers were injured Tuesday, one seriously, when a fire broke out in an electrical vault beneath Ventura Boulevard in Encino.

The two men were replacing a defective cable in the underground vault at 15927 Ventura Blvd. when a spark of unknown origin ignited a fire at about 9:30 a.m., DWP spokeswoman Lucia Alvelais said.

Whether the fire broke out as a result of the cable replacement is unknown, but the defective cable had been de-energized prior to the accident, she said.

DWP officials will launch an investigation of the accident today in an effort to determine the cause of the fire, Alvelais said.

The 4,800-volt cable lines found in the electrical vault feed through to a distribution station, which lowers voltage levels before transmitting electricity into nearby homes and businesses, Alvelais said.

Injured in the fire were Robert Herrera, 25, of Alhambra and Melvin Minor, 38, of Simi Valley.

Herrera sustained second- and third-degree burns to his face and forearms and Minor suffered from smoke inhalation, she said. Herrera and Minor were wearing safety goggles and rubber gloves at the time of the accident, Alvelais said.

Both men were taken to Sherman Oaks Community Hospital, where they were listed in stable condition.

A more tragic scenario was played out in Pasadena in July, 1990, when three water and power workers were killed in an explosion in an underground electrical vault.

The accident was apparently set off when workers mistook a 4,000-volt energized electrical line for part of a de-energized line, investigators said.

As a result, officials from Pasadena’s Water and Power Department agreed to various reforms, including assigning an employee to watch vault entrances during repairs, recording levels of gas and oxygen inside vaults prior to repairs, requiring that hard hats be worn inside vaults and that employees follow a written emergency plan, said Henry Lee, an assistant manager of power systems for the Pasadena agency.