Pole-top fires cut power to about 30,000 Perth homes after drizzly rain
About 30,000 Western Power customers have woken up without power this morning due to outages stretching across Perth’s northern and southern suburbs.
Homes and businesses around the metropolitan area, from Hamilton Hill in the south to Connolly in the north, have been impacted by a weather-damaged network, with some customers warned their power may not be restored until later in the day.
Other suburbs affected include Girrawheen, Beechboro, Thornlie, the Vines, Duncraig, Noranda and Parkwood.
Western Power’s Zane Christmas said the blackouts were caused by 48 pole-top fires triggered by drizzly rain overnight.
Western Power’s Zane Christmas says the utility is working as quickly as possible to fix things. (ABC News: Keane Bourke)
“Not the morning that we wanted to wake up to especially for those customers impacted,” he told ABC Radio Perth.
“We do appreciate the frustration … it happened a couple weeks ago and now we’re in this situation again.”
Tens of thousands of WA homes and businesses lost power in late January after similarly drizzly weather triggered pole-top fires.
‘Very difficult’ to predict
Mr Christmas said the utility was working to get the electricity restored as soon as possible, and customers were “no more frustrated than our teams trying to repair it”.
“It’s random events, very difficult to predict. [We’re] spending a huge amount of money every year trying to mitigate it, but it is a really difficult sort of phenomenon,” he said.
“All you need is that really light drizzle and we’re in this situation.“
Mr Christmas said crews were working as quickly as possible to make hazards safe while assessing poles for replacement.
The utility has warned some customers may be without power until later in the day, because each pole can take between four and eight hours to replace.
But Mr Christmas said it was difficult to provide accurate estimates for restoration time while in the “hazard management stage”.
Western Power says some customers may be without power until later in the day. (ABC News: Gian De Poloni)
“We are usually able to apply those as the hazard teams assess the damages,” he said.
“We’ll be estimating and communicating as we get some more information … it’s very early in the process.”
Pole-top fires can be sparked by rain or “misty damp conditions” combining with dust or pollution build-up that settles on power lines over summer.
Western Power said it was constantly improving the way outages were managed, including preventative programs involving insulator replacements as well as maintaining trees and vegetation near wires.
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