A CROSS arm of a Powercor pole on Rippon Road adjacent to the Hamilton Lawn Tennis Club courts, heated up causing it to catch fire at approximately 6.02 am yesterday morning.

 The cross arm then dropped from the high voltage lines onto low voltage lines causing a major power outage for the majority of Hamilton, impacting around 3000 residences and business, including the CBD.

Captain Malcolm Anderson was at the scene with CFA volunteers with two vehicles from the Hamilton Fire Brigade who worked quickly to reduce the fire.

“A combination of a build of dust, a run of hot days followed by light rain overnight, created a film on the insulator and a path for electricity to leak through and flow onto the cross arm causing it to heat up, catch on fire and cause the fault,” he said.

“The fire largely self extinguished due to the light misty rain but we were onsite to secure the area from further sparks from the embers on the end of the cross arm.”

Police were also onsite to assist CFA in keeping traffic away from the powerlines that did end up falling to the ground which is what caused the power outage.

A Powercor team attended quickly working to replace the damaged cross arm and restore power to around 2700 premises including the CBD by 8.30am with the remainder to be restored throughout the day.

Powercor updated its customers with regular text messages on the outage and expected time of restoration.