Overview
- A fire started at the TenneT distribution station in Meeden on Saturday evening, reportedly at a dwarsregeltransformator, and large volumes of flammable cooling oil in underground cellars fed heavy smoke and flames.
- Responders used a scaled, specialist approach because very high voltages and inaccessible oil-filled cellars made direct firefighting unsafe, employing cooling of nearby equipment, drone reconnaissance, remote blusrobots, controlled burning and later a targeted foam operation.
- After crews removed part of the façade to reach the seat of the fire, a focused foam attack on Monday afternoon and evening extinguished the blaze and the site was cleared and handed over to TenneT for recovery and a cause investigation.
- Authorities issued an NL-Alert when smoke spread, advised residents to keep windows and doors closed and to wash or discard contaminated items, and said tests so far show no PCBs in the cooling oil; an information evening for locals has been scheduled.
- TenneT took the station offline and rerouted electricity flows so there were no outages, and because the Meeden node supports offshore wind and cross-border imports the priority on containment was to protect network stability while environmental monitoring and follow-up continue.