Fire at DWP Station Causes Brief Outage
A fire at a Department of Water and Power substation Thursday caused a brief power outage to about 3,000 customers, officials said.
The fire, triggered by an exploding transformer, was extinguished in a few minutes, according to Los Angeles Firefighter Richard Brown. There were no injuries at the unstaffed facility.
Neighbor Ted Bennett said he heard an explosion and saw clouds of dark smoke billowing over rooftops. “I was more concerned about these houses here,” he said, pointing to a row of homes near the substation.
The transformer probably blew because of a surge in energy consumption caused by the summer heat, Brown said.
“It was hot last night, it’s about 104 degrees today,” he said.
Power was restored in three minutes, said DWP spokeswoman Darlene Battle.
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