(Image: Seattle Fire)

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.

ENERGY 1 (Image: City of Seattle)

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.

The electrical mishap was one of a string of power grid issues in the area in recent weeks. Sunday, around 8,000 customers across Capitol Hill and Madison Park went dark for about an hour in an outage SCL says was caused by a failed switch used to control the flow of electricity. Meanwhile, last Monday afternoon, 10,000 customers were without power around Northern Capitol Hill after wires were damaged by a “large downed tree.”

Despite efforts to fortify more of the area’s grid, many areas around Capitol Hill remain vulnerable to overhead wire damage and failure. CHS reported last year on how density and development has shaped the area’s power grid with new apartment buildings often requiring work to move utilities below the surface. The result is more frequent outages around some of the Hill’s least-developed blocks dominated by single family-style homes in some of the wealthiest neighborhoods in Seattle.

Capitol Hill’s transit-rich core has also played a part as Seattle City Light spent millions over the past two decades on projects to add upgrades including thicker wires and larger utility poles to support infrastructure upgrades needed to power Capitol Hill Station.

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