Fergus fire station responded to early morning substation fire

ABOYNE – The Fergus fire station attended an early morning fire at a Hydro One substation near the Wellington County OPP station early Friday morning.

The call came in at 3:15am on Sept. 11 and the Fergus station was on scene by 3:25am.

However, because the fire was contained within the substation on Wellington Road 18, the fire department notified Hydro One and waited until the power was turned off before extinguishing the fire, explained deputy fire chief Jonathan Karn.

“We can’t do a lot until the power is isolated,” Karn said.

“Water and electricity don’t go together very well.”

Hydro One arrived on scene at 4:30am and the fire was out by about 5:15am.

There were 17 firefighters on the scene from the Fergus station and there were no injuries.

Karn said the cause is unknown at this time but Hydro One remains on scene.

While many areas of Fergus, Elora and Salem serviced by Hydro One were initially without power, Karn said Hydro One was able to backfeed many of the customers and hydro is now restored in many areas.

The Hydro One website noted 1,559 customers in the area were originally without power.

The outage still showed on the website shortly after 10am, but the site noted power was expected to be restored by 10:15am.

Reporter