Johannesburg – The Central Substation has caught alight just as City Power was nearing completion of the restoration process following a previous fire earlier this month.
City Power said its operators and Johannesburg Emergency Management Services (EMS) were already on site at Central Substation.
The fire appears to have started in the early hours of this morning, Saturday, 26 September 2026.
The incident has resulted in another outage affecting customers in Marshalltown and possibly surrounding areas.
EMS is attending to the incident, while City Power operators are awaiting the smoke to subside before they can safely enter the affected sections and assess the extent of the damage.
This is the third fire to affect Central Substation within a short period and comes while City Power was nearing completion of the restoration process following the second fire earlier this month.
City Power said the recurrence of fires at the same critical facility, within weeks of each other and while extensive repairs were still underway, was a “serious concern”.
While the cause of this morning’s fire is yet to be established, the sequence of incidents will form an important part of the investigation into what has been happening around Central Substation and the underground electricity network.
City Power Acting Chief Executive Officer, Charles Tlouane, said the recurrence of incidents at Central Substation cannot be viewed in isolation.
“We are extremely concerned by what appears to be a sequence of incidents affecting the same critical electricity infrastructure within a very short period,” said Tlouane.
“Our teams have spent weeks repairing extensive damage and were close to completing the restoration of the network when another fire occurred.
“While we will not speculate on the cause of this latest incident before the necessary investigations are completed, the pattern and timing of these fires are deeply concerning and require a thorough investigation.”
The second fire occurred at approximately 01:00 on Tuesday, 9 September, only hours after City Power had restored electricity supply at 19:00 the previous evening following an initial outage reported on Sunday, 6 September.
Smoke from the underground cable tunnels prevented technical teams from entering the affected area until Emergency Services declared the site safe.
That incident was itself the second fire at Central Substation within a period of two weeks.
Preliminary indications at the time suggested that it may have been linked to theft and vandalism of electrical infrastructure within the underground cable tunnels.
The cause remained subject to formal investigation.
Since then, City Power teams have carried out extensive repairs to the damaged network.
By 25 September, approximately 98% of the affected network had been restored.
All four Ring Main Units damaged in the previous fire had also been replaced, while teams were finalising the remaining repairs.
City Power said it cannot, at this stage, confirm the cause of this morning’s fire or the extent of the damage.
Once the smoke has subsided and EMS confirms that the area is safe to enter, City Power operators will conduct a technical assessment. The findings will determine the repairs required and inform the restoration plan.
City Power urges customers, businesses and residents in the Inner City to be our eyes and ears on the ground and report any suspicious activity around substations, underground cable tunnels, manholes and other electricity infrastructure.
Members of the public should not confront anyone suspected of criminal activity, but should report such incidents to the relevant authorities.
Suspicious activity, vandalism, cable theft or other criminal activity affecting City Power infrastructure can be reported to City Power Security Risk Management on 011 490 7900 / 011 490 7911 or via WhatsApp on 083 579 4497.
Information can also be reported to the South African Police Service.
For isolated individual outages and other electricity-related queries, customers are advised to log calls on citypower.mobi or call 011 490 7484 / 0800 202 925.
