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Plymouth power outage restored after substation fire

Cause of substation explosion, fire unknown at this time

PLYMOUTH, Mich. – Thousands of residents and business owners have their power back after a DTE Energy substation caught fire Wednesday night.

The entire city of Plymouth was without power Wednesday night after explosions and fire at a substation near Farmer and Theodore streets. DTE doesn't know what caused fire yet. It may have been an equipment problem, or even a squirrel gnawing at lines. But the substation went up like a torch. 

No injuries were reported. 

"There's a lot of energy. Think about all of the energy to serve all of those 4,000 homes and businesses in the area. All of that energy is going through those transformers, and a failure in there pumps all of that energy right there into the transformer. It needs a place to go and it went into the oil and later caused the explosions and fire," said Ryan Stowe, DTE executive director. 

About 4,000 were without power Wednesday night. Everything was restored by Friday morning. 

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Here are videos of the fire Wednesday night: 


About the Authors
Nick Monacelli headshot

Nick joined the Local 4 team in February of 2015. Prior to that he spent 6 years in Sacramento covering a long list of big stories including wildfires and earthquakes. Raised in Sterling Heights, he is no stranger to the deep history and pride Detroit has to offer.

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