BY JARED KOLI
A fire incident resulted from an electrical fault at Solomon Power’s electric pillar box at Point Cruz on Friday, requires the state-owned electricity provider to do regular checks at its public power boxes.
A member of the public who was among dozen others that witness Friday’s incident, said such occurrence pose threat to lives and properties and must be prevented at all cost.
This paper witnessed an electrical pillar box, located next to Pioneer shop at Point Cruz bursted in massive flames at dusk on Friday, sending shockwaves among pedestrians and close-by business owners.
Owner of Pioneer Shop was lucky enough to remove his vehicle parked close to the burning electrical box, as Solomon Motors lends its fire extinguisher to assist men took down the fury flames.
Solomon Power workers later arrived and confirmed that the fault is caused by a load of dirt. This paper witnessed a mixture of dirt including empty plastic bottles, empty cans, plastics and sticks filled the power box when Solomon Power workers arrived and opened the burning power box.
An electrical contractor, Paul Urariu who was also at the scene then, said there could be a fault in the pillar box which at times can be caused by misconnection or dirty filled. This is because such power boxes contain very high voltage connecting to underground electricity lines.
Meanwhile, the member of the public said, power boxes stationed in public vicinities should be regularly inspected and cleaned to prevent such incidence.
“It is their duty, they must do more regular checks at their appliances, and if necessary have them cleaned at all times to prevent dangers from public.
“Lucky that this incident was controlled in time before the flame could have intensified and catch on to other buildings or properties,” the member of the public who refused to be named, said.
Island Sun understands that Solomon Power has already had the pillar box fixed and replaced it with a new 400 volts new pillar box, much smaller in size.
A team of Fire fighters arrived minutes later and assists men to control the flame with fire extinguishers during the fire incident.
