{"id":499766,"date":"2026-01-07T21:03:13","date_gmt":"2026-01-07T21:03:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/499766\/"},"modified":"2026-01-07T21:03:13","modified_gmt":"2026-01-07T21:03:13","slug":"fire-at-summerside-power-plant-prompts-shutdown-of-all-generators","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/499766\/","title":{"rendered":"Fire at Summerside power plant prompts shutdown of all generators"},"content":{"rendered":"

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The Summerside Electric Plant shut off all its generators after a fire broke out at the power facility just before 6 p.m. Tuesday evening.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Summerside Fire Department officially declared the fire over at 7:30 p.m., but said crews would remain on site overnight as a precaution.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“Everything was under control within a few minutes,” said Ron Enman, the Summerside fire chief.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Enman said he could see flames shooting out of the building when he arrived on scene.<\/p>\n

“The plant’s exhaust system ignited as a result of the Summerside Electric diesel generators operating at high capacity to meet peak energy loads over the last few days,” said a statement from the Summerside Fire Department.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The cause of the fire has not yet been formally determined and remains under investigation by the P.E.I. Fire Marshal’s office, but preliminary information suggests the fire started in the exhaust system associated with one of the plant’s engines, said an email statement from officials with the City of Summerside. <\/p>\n

“Over the next several days, inspections will include physical assessments and thermal imaging, with a focus on the exhaust systems and associated infrastructure,” the statement reads. <\/p>\n

“While early indications suggest the engine itself may not be damaged, further testing is required to confirm operational readiness.” <\/p>\n

\"FireThe fire marshal is expected to begin an investigation into the fire at the Summerside Electric Plant on Wednesday. (Ken Linton\/CBC)Generators remain offline\u00a0<\/p>\n

Summerside Mayor Dan Kutcher said that while only one generator seems to be involved in the fire, the entire plant will remain shut down until more information is known.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“We’re not going to turn the plant back on \u2014 any of the generators \u2014 until we understand that everything is safe,” Kutcher said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“We’re not going to jeopardize the safety of the community, we’re not going to jeopardize the safety of our firefighters, our residents.”<\/p>\n

\"AThe Summerside Fire Department declared the fire at the Summerside Electric Plant to be officially over at 7:30 p.m. on Tuesday evening. (Ken Linton\/CBC)<\/p>\n

While the plant’s generators aren’t intended to run constantly, recent cold temperatures and broader electricity transmission issues on the Island meant they had been running at nearly a flat out rate for the past four or five days, Kutcher said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“We’re buying power from New Brunswick, but Maritime Electric can’t get enough to us. And that’s where we’re stuck having to run our generators more than we’d like to and more than we should be,” Kutcher said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The electric plant provides 15 megawatts of power to the energy grid when it’s running, the mayor said, noting that taking that energy offline has a big impact.\u00a0<\/p>\n

‘We can only do so much’<\/p>\n

Kutcher said Maritime Electric has opened up transmission capacity so the city can receive more of the power that it buys from New Brunswick.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He added that the city will continue to leverage its other power resources, including its solar farm, battery, windmill and generators housed at municipal facilities.\u00a0<\/p>\n

For residents of Summerside, Kutcher said it’s important to continue trying to offset electricity usage from peak times of the day, which are typically between 6 and 10 a.m., and 4 and 7 p.m.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Kutcher said the city has initiated a process to get new generators and continue replacing old ones in the power plant, but that will take time.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“We can only do so much here in the city until we get direct access to power from New Brunswick,” he said. <\/p>\n

As of Wednesday afternoon, power conditions remain stable and no city-wide power outages occurred as a result of the incident, said an email statement from officials with the City of Summerside. <\/p>\n

“That said, inspections are still ongoing, and the City continues to plan conservatively should conditions change,” the statement reads. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Listen to this article Estimated 4 minutes The audio version of this article is generated by AI-based technology.…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":499767,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[2147,50],"class_list":{"0":"post-499766","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"tag-canada","9":"tag-news"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115855845649630903","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/499766","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=499766"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/499766\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/499767"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=499766"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=499766"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=499766"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}