An Empire District Electric substation spontaneously catches fire Saturday evening.
Neosho Fire Department received a call around 8:30 P.M. Saturday night about a transformer on fire at the substation located at the corner of Industrial Drive and Missouri Highway 59. Before firefighters could begin extinguishing the fire, representatives from Empire had to arrive to shut down the station completely. After their arrival, Neosho fire used foam to safely put out the fire. The fire was extinguished around 9:20 P.M.
The department is still investigating the cause of the fire, but officials say foul play is not suspected. No injured were reported. Empire officials say the fire didn’t cause any outages in the area. They add the accident caused an estimated 1 million dollars in damages.