FIREFIGHTERS prevented a major electricity breakdown in Tavistock on Sunday when a blaze broke out in a sub-station. Some 2,300 homes were briefly left without power while six fire crews tackled the blaze which gutted the wooden workshop adjoining the main building in Stannary Bridge Road. But it was ?good teamwork? that prevented the fire from spreading and doing major damage to the electricity network, fire officers have said. Crews from Tavistock found the building well alight at 7.45am after a member of staff from Western Power Distribution arriving at work saw smoke billowing from the building. Back-up was supplied by Princetown and Yelverton fire crews with a hydraulic platform from Camels Head and an incident control unit from Plymouth. Firefighters had to wait for the power to be switched off before they could use water on the burning building which measured 20 metres by 10 metres. Western Power Distribution said power was restored to 94% of the homes within an hour and the remainder by lunchtime. Part of the roof of the sub-station had to be removed, including asbestos lagging, to stop the fire spreading. The blaze was under control by 10.30am but crews stayed at the scene until 1.30pm to help engineers from the electricity company clear up the debris. Tavistock fire station commander Tim Smith said he was very proud of his fellow firefighters. ?It was through good teamwork that we stopped the fire from spreading and causing further damage,? he said. ?If the fire had got to the transformer it would have taken an awful lot of work to sort out the electricity supply.? Mr Smith said it was likely the fire had been raging for 20 minutes before the brigade was alerted. He advised: ?If local residents see smoke coming from a building, they should contact us. Do not assume that someone else has already called us.? From a window in his house in Parkwood Road, Graham Kirkpatrick said he could see a spiral of smoke close to a telegraph pole at 7.10am but he thought someone was having a bonfire early in the morning. ?About 20 minutes later the smoke was billowing and flames were coming up, then the flames extended the length of the pole ? it was quite spectacular,? he said. The cause of the blaze is still being investigated. A spokeswoman for Western Power Distribution said homes had been taken off the supply for safety reasons. ?They were all back on by lunchtime and the main substation was not affected,? she said. ?If there had been further damage we would have connected the customers to an alternative supply whilst repair work was carried out.?
