Substation fire leaves 1000 homes without power

Over 1000 homes were without electricity for several hours on Saturday morning after a fire broke out at the Riverview Road substation in Ewell.

The fire is thought to have been cause by a blown fuse which ignited dry vegetation around the substation.

A spokesman for the fire service said: “We were called to Riverview Road in Ewell to an electric substation which had developed a fault causing a massive fuse to blow. It had given out an array of sparks which set the vegetation alight. We had to be very careful how we put out the fire because of the live electricity cables in the area, we could not use water and had to use a dry powder extinguisher.”

A spokesperson for UK Power Networks said: “UK Power Networks staff have restored electricity supplies to 1,482 customers who were affected by a power interruption at 6.20am today in Ewell. Engineers acted quickly and safely to reconnect power in the area, bringing back supplies to all but 156 customers in an hour and restoring the final supplies by 8.30am. The incident was caused by a fault on a piece of equipment within a substation in Riverview Road. We apologise to customers for the inconvenience this caused.”