While upmarket homeowners live in fear of a suspected arsonist, a new fire threat has emerged in the form of hazardous power surges that can happen when electricity is restored after an outage.
A large thatched-roof house in Joburg’s Parkview caught fire just after midday on Monday and burnt down in what firefighters suspect was a case of “load-shedding electrical shock”.
“That is what we believe it was at this stage. There was also another one like it in Soweto also on Monday,” said Robert Mulaudzi, spokesperson for Johannesburg’s Emergency Management Services.
Load-shedding electrical shock, he said, is happening with increasing frequency, and fires that result from it are also expected to increase as load-shedding continues. The incidents, he explained, occur when people fail to switch off their big appliances when there is load-shedding. When the power comes back on, there is often a surge of power, and this can cause appliances to blow or plugs to explode, resulting in a fire.
In the case of Monday’s fire in Hillcrest Road, Mulaudzi said nobody was present when the house caught fire. By late afternoon firefighters were still on the scene, spraying down the blackened thatch.
“This kind of thing is happening because we are having power outages, sometimes three times a day, so people are not remembering to switch things off when there is load-shedding,” Mulaudzi said.
One of the big problems we see is the multiplugs that everybody here uses, the kind of plugs that are illegal in the US and for good reason. They are inherently dangerous.
— Danny Joubert, independent fire investigator
Independent fire investigator Danny Joubert said load-shedding shock fires were indeed a current reality, with many contributing factors.
“I actually investigated one yesterday in a retirement village where the whole house, cars and everything was lost,” Joubert said.
“What people don’t understand for the most part is that there are so many factors within a house that people need to be really careful about in normal circumstances. But now, let’s face it, the circumstances we find ourselves in now are not normal at all,” he said.
“One of the big problems we see is the multiplugs that everybody here uses, the kind of plugs that are illegal in the US and for good reason. They are inherently dangerous,” Joubert said.
“When you need a multiplug you go to Checkers and you will find one for R300, one for R200 and one for R79. So you buy the one for R79, not knowing that it’s cheap components are made of the thinnest wiring that can’t hold up in an electrical surge,” Joubert explained, adding people often then plug appliances that draw large amounts of power — such as fridges, microwaves, kettles and hairdryers — into the multiplugs.
He advised consumers to choose quality, branded products that are more solid and reliable than cheaper electrics that may contain flimsy, poor quality components that can fail.
“In the case I saw yesterday, there had been a power outage for several hours, so the fridge had not been running and had warmed up a bit. So when the power came on, it started sucking a lot of amps.
“At the same time, the power came back on with a surge — probably going up to 350 or 380 volts, and with the surge and the draw you have an overheated plug socket that bursts into flames. In that case they lost the whole house, cars and everything,” Joubert said. “But now where do you draw the line? Can you say it is load-shedding? It’s an exacerbating factor for sure.”
Mulaudzi said they are seeing cases like this more regularly and predict more as load-shedding continues.
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