> the fire was extinguished before Boulder City Fire Department arrived on scene. Bureau of Reclamation/ Hoover Dam will be handling any additional questions.
And finally, the official news release from Bureau of Reclamation
> At approx. 10 a.m. PDT, the A5 transformer at Hoover Dam caught fire & was extinguished by @usbr/Hoover fire brigade at approx. 10:30am PDT. There are no injuries to visitors/employees. There is no risk to the power grid. Power is still being generated from the powerhouse.
> We are investigating the cause of the fire & will provide additional updates as they are available.
From the photos this looks like it might be an isophase bus GSU transformer, which is responsible for stepping up generation voltages for one or more generation units to substation voltages. These transformers are large, very expensive, very long-lead custom designs and consequently are closely monitored for temperature rise, hydrocarbon gas discharge, and gas pressure, in addition to various other electrical relay protection schemes acting on the faster electrical damage hazards. They are usually very well protected against all possible major equipment failures. The fact that this happened is an enormous screwup, it's not even within a few orders of magnitude of the power pole transformer that blows up during a lightning storm or similar.
Yes, but more like 20 years than 2. A lot of utilities out there are failing to properly maintain major infrastructure due to a a lot of complex factors not the least of which is that maintaining things is fundamentally 'unsexy' to management
https://twitter.com/BoulderCityNev/status/154944695936623001...
> Boulder City Fire Department is en route to an emergency call at Hoover Dam. No further information is available at this time.
https://twitter.com/BoulderCityNev/status/154945520167693107...
> the fire was extinguished before Boulder City Fire Department arrived on scene. Bureau of Reclamation/ Hoover Dam will be handling any additional questions.
And finally, the official news release from Bureau of Reclamation
https://twitter.com/usbr/status/1549460732726714371
https://www.usbr.gov/newsroom/#/news-release/4273
> At approx. 10 a.m. PDT, the A5 transformer at Hoover Dam caught fire & was extinguished by @usbr/Hoover fire brigade at approx. 10:30am PDT. There are no injuries to visitors/employees. There is no risk to the power grid. Power is still being generated from the powerhouse.
> We are investigating the cause of the fire & will provide additional updates as they are available.