Electrical fire at Stourbridge

Electrical fire at Stourbridge substation leaves over 1,800 homes without power

More than 1,800 homes were temporarily without power in Stourbridge after a fire was reported at an electricity substation.

West Midlands Fire Service was called just after 3:35 pm on Sunday to reports of a fire at an electricity substation off Brettell Lane, Amblecote.

Firefighters from Brierley Hill station attended the scene.

A spokesman for West Midlands Fire Service, said: “This was an accidental fire, which was put out using carbon dioxide extinguishers.”

“We left the incident in the hands of National Grid at around 4:45 pm.”

Writing on X (Twitter), at the time of the incident, the service added that the blaze had resulted in a power outage in the area.

A spokesman for National Grid Electricity Distribution however said the loss of power was caused by an equipment fault.

He continued: “The failure of a cable end box at one of our substations led to a loss of electricity for initially 1,832 customers.”

“Automatic switching meant about 1,200 customers had power restored within three minutes, with all but one of the remaining customers back on supply within three hours. The last remaining customer affected was reconnected at 00.46.”

“We apologise to customers for the disruption this fault caused and thank them for their patience.”