2 of Madison Gas & Electric substations are on fire

Yikes, 94 degrees for the high today, hottest day of the year, not a good day to lose 2 substations. Fire at electric substation leaves 13,000 without power in Madison, Wisconsin, amid heat wave - CNN

Unfortunately, substation transformers are not easy to come by, a new one to be built would be 3 months at best. Spares are often not readily available and of course take a large crane to move.

Any antifa around?

HillbillyHotRod said:

Any antifa around?

Click to expand...

Two at once on soft targets does have the possibility of terrorism. Then again, one could have gone and resulted in the other failing soon after. I've seen similar things happen.

HillbillyHotRod said:

Any antifa around?

Click to expand...

Oh there are lunatic leftists around here but Antifa doesn't really have a presence.

SID297 said:

Two at once on soft targets does have the possibility of terrorism. Then again, one could have gone and resulted in the other failing soon after. I've seen similar things happen.

Click to expand...

It is certainly possible that once one failed, automatic switching procedures dumped too much load on the next substation. There should have been high side transformer protection (circuit switcher or at least fusing) to protect it though.

One thought is that the underground transmission lines in this area of the city are in an oil filled conduit. If fire starts at one end it could potentially boil the oil in the conduit and the pressure could cause oil to be discharged at the other end of the line.