Huge fire breaks out at electrical substation in west London.
Around 100 firefighters were tackling the blaze in Maida Vale, and residents were advised to keep their windows and doors closed.
A massive fire broke out at an electrical substation in west London.
Around 100 firefighters from Paddington, Euston, and surrounding fire stations were tackling the blaze on Aberdeen Place in Maida Vale, where an electrical transformer had caught fire.
That portion of the fire “is now under control,” according to the London Fire Brigade (LFB), but “firefighters are continuing to work to fully extinguish it”.
The roof and a flat of a neighbouring residential building were also on fire, but both were extinguished, according to LFB.
“Around 100 residents [including elderly and vulnerable people] were evacuated from their homes, but some have now returned,” LFB assistant commissioner Pat Goulbourne said.
Steve Pennington from Westminster City Council’s Welfare Response Team stated that teams were assisting those affected.
“We have displaced residents and are doing everything we can to help them,” he said outside the Wharncliffe Gardens Community Centre.
“We have had a number of residents, some of them elderly, some of them requiring assistance from the local authorities.”
According to Mr Goulbourne, a major incident was declared just before 8.30 a.m. and was called off around 11 a.m.
There have been no reports of injuries so far, according to the brigade.
Firefighters will continue to work “for some time on the transformer at the substation,” Mr Goulbourne said, where crews “have been deploying foam to suppress the flames” of what he described as a “technically complex fire”.
LFB has deployed a 32-metre turntable ladder “to tackle the fire from above,” he said, while drones are providing commanders with “a greater situational awareness of the incident”.
Images from the surrounding areas show thick black smoke blowing across the city skyline.
As crews responded, the brigade reported that its scientific advisers were monitoring the local air quality.
LFB said it received over 170 calls about the blaze starting around 5.30 a.m. on Tuesday and dispatched 15 fire engines.
“This is a very visible fire that is emitting a lot of smoke,” said station commander Paul Morgan.
“Residents are advised to keep their windows and doors shut and avoid the area where possible.”
According to UK Power Networks, the blaze was caused by faulty equipment in the substation.
It also stated that the fire had not disrupted the area’s power supply and that “customers’ supplies were not impacted”.
It comes a month after Heathrow was shut down due to a fire at a nearby electrical substation.
After cancelling over 1,000 flights and affecting hundreds of thousands of passengers, the Metropolitan Police Department stated that the fire was not a criminal matter.
Fatima Bazzi, 71, who lives next to the substation, said, “I wake up, I smell something wrong, I go into my sitting room, and I see smoke.”
Her daughter Alice, 36, said it was unfortunate that “any flat, any of my neighbours, have to lose any of their belongings due to a fault that is not their own.”
Marc Whitehouse, 44, who was staying with his girlfriend Adele Dillon at a flat in Aberdeen Place, described the fringe as sounding like scaffold planks being thrown away. I awoke at six a.m. and wondered, ‘Who’s starting work at this time?’
“And she (Ms Dillon) came in and said ‘the substation is on fire’.”
Ms Dillon, 54, who uses a wheelchair, reported hearing “popping and crackling” when she opened the curtains at 6 a.m.
The couple left the flat, accompanied by their dog and two cats, and joined a dozen other people waiting for updates at a nearby community centre.
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