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© Mike Siegel / The Seattle TimesA fire at a Puget Sound Energy substation in Redmond on Willows Road put up a column of smoke visible from Seattle and all over the Eastside.
A transformer caught fire at a Puget Sound Energy substation in the Redmond area at midday Thursday, sending a tall plume of black smoke into the sky and causing 25,000 Puget Sound Energy customers to lose power.

Then late Thursday afternoon, the substation flared again for a couple of minutes. Redmond firefighters were keeping a water hose on the damaged transformer to keep it cool and prevent it from flaring up again, PSE spokeswoman Dorothy Bracken said.

There were no reports of injuries, PSE spokeswoman Allison Stanford said, and all power was restored by about 3 p.m. or shortly thereafter.

However, some oil from the transformer and foam used to smother the fire did enter storm drains that link to a creek that eventually joins the Sammamish River.

It's too soon to know whether there was any ecological damage, but the state Department of Ecology was to return Friday to continue advising contractors doing cleanup.

The fire knocked out power for some users from Bellevue to Everett. A half dozen buildings on the Microsoft campus went dark as well.

In Redmond, six intersections were without working signals, causing traffic tie-ups in the area, Redmond spokeswoman Marta Gronlund said.

Puget Sound Energy received a call at 12:30 p.m. alerting it to the fire at the transformer, which is on Willows Road. PSE workers were dispatched shortly after the call, Stanford said.

"This is a very rare event," said Stanford.

There's no suspected criminal activity, and the fire appeared to have been caused by a mineral oil used by the transformer, according to a statement by the Redmond Police Department.


The transformer takes high voltages of energy and converts and distributes it so customers can use the power. It uses a nontoxic mineral oil as a coolant and conductor, Stanford said.

The burning oil caused a tall plume of black smoke, Stanford said. She said she was not aware of any toxins coming from the fire.

Transformers once used hazardous PBCs, (polychlorinated biphenyls) but most now use safer materials such as vegetable-based oils, said Sadie Whitener, who works with state Department of Ecology.

Any business that has 10,000 or more pounds of a hazardous substance on site is required to report it to the state, and the Redmond substation doesn't have anything reported, Whitener said, adding that PSE has been a "good neighbor."

Redmond and Kirkland fire departments responded to the fire call and the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport sent a foam truck to help, along with a team of three airport firefighters.

Some of the transformer oils and foam sprayed by firefighters entered a retention pond, where a contractor hired by PSE began pumping it into a vacuum truck. The city of Redmond early in the incident had closed off the link between the retention pond and the storm drain.

But about five gallons of the material leaked from vents on the truck and made its way into another storm drain near the substation, Larry Altose, spokesman for Ecology, said in an email.

"We do not have a precise estimate of how much oil entered the retention pond. we've been working with a figure of 1,000 gallons, but I have to stress that this is subject to change."

The drains were blocked off and are being cleaned. It's not clear how much got into the storm drain or any nearby streams.

"This incident had very serious potential," Altose said. "The environmental consequences could have been quite substantial, as the river has fish runs, bank habitat, and is the centerpiece of public parks and paths its whole length."

The decision to close links between the retention pond and the drains kept contamination confined.

"This did not avoid all environmental damage, but very greatly minimized it," Altose said.