Fire completely burned switch box cum transformer in 66th Street of G 9/4 sector at about 3 pm on Wednesday afternoon. The monetary damage for the loss of transformer was calculated to be over Rs 200,000.
Residents of the locality immediately informed the fire brigade, but Asghar, team leader of the fire fighting unit, told the gathered crowd that he could not use water for extinguishing the blaze of fire, until power was cut off.
A local resident said that IESCO (Islamabad Electric Supply CO) had been informed on 9261982, but the repairing unit had not arrived till about 4pm. The fire brigade took action after the power was switched off, dousing the electric switch box with water, with the result that water was converted into steam, much to the annoyance of the residents of the area. However, as a precaution the fire fighting unit personnel had asked the crowd to move away.
Executive Engineer Wajid was still busy until Isha prayer working on the replacement of switch box and transformer, but the work had not completed. He told Business Recorder that the fire was caused due to tripping of high tension wires, and not due to pressure of power load.
That, regardless, Asim said that there was power outage in the street since the last two days, and yesterday IESCO had informed the residents that switch box was fixed. How well fixed could be guessed from the blazing fire that happened today, consuming switch box and the transformer, and causing loss to national property.