An electrical fire has broken out in Rookley this afternoon (Monday) with sparks flying from a pole at the side of the road.
Hampshire & Isle of Wight Fire and Rescue Service is on scene at Main Road, near the junction with Hillcrest Road. 2 appliances from Newport are in attendance.
The top of an electricity pole is on fire.
The road has been closed in both directions whilst emergency services deal with the incident. As a result, Southern Vectis buses are diverting via Merstone in both directions until further notice.
UPDATE @ 18:00 – Scottish and Southern Electricity Networks have been requested to attend the incident.
The road is expected to re-open once engineers have made safe the immediate area.
Some households in Rookley are without power this evening. It’s unknown when supplies will be restored to those affected.
UPDATE @ 20:33 – Main Road, Rookley has now re-opened.
Residents can expect power to be restored by midnight.
So, what caused it? Surely, poles don’t just catch fire by themselves? Electrical fault maybe? An explanation would have been nice.
Sadly a lack of maintenance by SEN. I passed this pole transformer Tuesday last week and noticed the accumulation of dead ivy at the top of the pole, overhanging the main insulators. I thought if that lot gets very wet it will short out and catch fire.
Sadly, my memory is not what it used to be and by the time I got home, I had forgotten where the poles were sited and also forgotten about reporting it. It took me two days to remember about it. Sorry Rookley and SEN, but a regular inspection of assets might have prevented this.
When you see the state of some of the overhead cables it’s no wonder there getting dangerous .
think sse should start paying some attention to this sort of supply before some one gets injured or someone’s house burns down
It’s not November 5th yet, stupid chav’s…lol.
What’s wrong with some people, no sense of humour, or is it an island thing…these down voter’s are nothing but miserable snowflakes.
S.S.E always finds the cheapest method of running cables .S.S.E have no disregard for the unsightly cables that are above ground and not below .any new cables can easily be threaded through conduit or lets say their own black ducting , all ducted services should be in footpaths ,to avoid any road excavations .this is 2021 so why put unsightly overhead cables , if we get heavy rain or wind ,this will not affect services.
Seriously, I love overhead cables. It’s one of the very many things I love about Japan. They have loads of them
So everyone moans about the disruption caused installing fibre broadband yet you would like to dig up all of the pavements, roads, driveways and gardens to lay new electric cable ducts over under and around the water gas and phones. And of course at 10 times the price of going overhead.
Great in a new estate but who’s paying?