Thousands of homes without power in Perth’s north as motorists warned to take care with traffic lights down

Emergency services are working to restore power to 37,000 homes and businesses in the Perth metropolitan and Hills areas.

Tens of thousands of people were left without power when light drizzle on Monday morning caused about 70 power poles to catch fire.

Motorists have been warned to take extra care on the wet roads with traffic lights down at various locations throughout the city.

The worst affected areas are Stirling, Wanneroo and Joondalup, where about 30 power poles caught fire.

A Western Power spokesperson said crews were working as quickly as possible to restore power but some customers would be left without electricity until this evening.

“Customers may see crews attending a fault and then leaving before power has been restored,” they said.

“This is because our crews priority is to make hazards safe first before commencing repairs.

“Once all hazards have been made safe, crews will be able to assess poles for replacement and start repair work.

“Each pole change can take between four to eight hours, depending on the type of pole, and unfortunately some customers may be without power until later in the day.”

The outages started early in the morning when light rain caused power poles to catch fire, initially affecting northern suburbs mostly in Duncraig through to Wanneroo, Yanchep and Two Rocks.

However, the continued drizzle caused more havoc as poles then caught fire in Stirling, Balcatta, Karrinyup, Scarborough and Doubleview.

Residents in Innaloo, Gwelup and Carine have also been impacted, while those in the Perth Hill areas of Mahogany Creek, Parkerville, Mundaring, Glen Forrest and Hovea were also not spared.

The outages have also left several suburbs without traffic lights, with blackouts in a number of suburbs including Malaga, Westminster, Balga, Balcatta, Karrinyup and Hamersley.

Main Roads has advised motorists to approach traffic intersections with extreme caution, slow down and give way to their right.

“Pole top fires can occur during light drizzling rain or misty damp conditions when a combination of recent dust and pollution builds up to create paths or ‘tracks’ on the insulators, enabling electricity to jump across,” the Western Power spokesperson said.

“This tracking electricity can heat elements of the pole infrastructure to a point where they smoulder and burn.

“We understand the inconvenience the outages are causing. We are communicating with customers directly impacted via SMS.”

The spokesperson said the utility was always looking to maintain its poles to minimise the risk of fire.

“Western Power’s network maintenance programs are constantly improving the way assets are managed, including the 860,000 poles in the network,” they said.

“We have a comprehensive poles and wires maintenance program and preventative programs which includes live line high pressure washing and silicon application using helicopter, insulator replacements and managing trees and vegetation near wires.

“Work was continually under way to minimise the risk of pole top fires across the network to increase resilience, however climate chance impacts on weather patterns were challenging.”

Western Power advises that those who see a fallen power line to stay at least 8m away and call the utility’s emergency line on 13 13 51.

More information on the blackout situation is available here.

REPLACING A POWER POLE

Most poles only have only one set of wires connected to them. Replacing a pole like this usually takes between four and eight hours. This is because:

• It has high voltage and low voltage wires connected, meaning a more complex repair sequence
• Poles on corners, with more than one set of wires connected to them
• Poles that have transformer or cable equipment on top that need to be installed, tested and commissioned
• Pole top switch used to isolate other electrical equipment.