Three-Alarm Fire Breaks Out at RI Power Station
By Alex Kuffner
Source The Providence Journal, R.I.
PROVIDENCE, RI—Thick, black smoke billowed over the city's skyline Saturday from a three-alarm fire outside the Manchester Street Power Station.
It started at about 11 a.m., when one of the transformers on the west side of the power plant exploded and burst into flames, and it took about four hours for 65 firefighters to get it under control and extinguish it, according to Deputy Assistant Fire Chief Brian Mahoney.
Nobody was injured in the fire. The electric supply from the 468-megawatt natural-gas-burning power plant was not interrupted.
The Providence Fire Department used air quality monitors to test the air downwind of the blaze and found no dangerous levels of toxins, Mahoney said.
The fire was traced back to the 5,000-gallon supply of mineral oil used as a coolant in the transformer's radiators. But what triggered the blaze is still under investigation.
"At this time, we haven't determined what caused the actual explosion," Mahoney said.
There was never any danger of the power plant itself catching fire, according to Mahoney.
"It was pretty well-contained," he said.
At the height of the fire, traffic was snarled on Route 195 as motorists stopped to take pictures.
The plant is owned by Starwood Energy Group, a Greenwich, Connecticut, firm that bought the facility from Dominion Energy last December. Crews from National Grid, the utility that owns the electric lines that connect the plant to the power grid, were on the scene, offering support.
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