Seattle Fire Department crews including its ENERGY 1 Energy Response Unit battled a major electrical fire Saturday afternoon across from a busy Capitol Hill Station. SFD reported it responded to the electrical fire just after noon at Broadway and John behind Dick’s Drive-In. Nearly an hour later, Seattle Fire reported its ENERGY 1 unit had extinguished the fire but not before substantial damage in the Seattle City Light vault.
SCL tells CHS the fire was caused by equipment failure and that full restoration of service from the systems utilizing was a complicated endeavor. “It was a complex restoration process that required several pieces of equipment to be repaired or replaced within the vault system,” a SCL spokesperson said. Reports of internet outages in the area were being blamed on a power outage by service providers hours after the incident.
Streets and sidewalks were closed in the area during the response. Seattle Fire also searched multiple structures near the fire to check for any possible extensions. Seattle Fire debuted the ENERGY 1 unit in 2023, calling it “the nation’s most capable apparatus for fighting electrical fires in substations and underground vaults.” More important are the firefighters trained especially to fight energy-related fires.
