BEC members in the Concan area experienced a lengthy power outage on Tuesday, March 10. An automatic circuit breaker detected a fault and opened-up at 2:14 p.m., interrupting power to over 900 members. Power was restored to about 340 members in the affected area at 6:26 p.m. with the balance of the members being restored about 9:21 p.m.

The cause of the outage was a pole fire on the main line. It was located on top of a hill in very rough terrain. BEC crews had to walk sections of the line that were not accessible by vehicle to locate the problem. Once the burning pole was located, crews were able to isolate the damaged section and restore power to 340 members. Once repairs were made the entire affected area was restored.

The pole caught on fire due to dust buildup on high-voltage insulators coupled with heavy moisture. BEC has experienced a number of pole top fires in recent weeks due to the extended drought together with just enough moisture to make the accumulated dust become a conductive path from the high-voltage line to the pole top.

“This was an unusually long power outage for BEC,” said David Brice, BEC regional operations superintendant. “Although we had several crews working on the problem the various circumstances we had to deal with pushed the restoration time out longer than we like to see. Our primary objective was to complete the work safely.”