TWO grassfires caused by a fallen powerline near Trafalgar were promptly contained by Country Fire Authority firefighters on Friday, but thousands of Moe and Trafalgar residents were left without power as temperatures soared above 40 degrees celsius.
A small grassfire near Telephone Road began at 9.53am when a powerline along Waterloo Road came down.
A second fire started near Goodings Road.
Trafalgar, Yarragon, Moe and Newborough CFA units attended the scenes, with about 20 firefighters controlling the fires by 10.30am.
SP AusNet confirmed the cause of the power outage was the downed line.
SP AusNet spokesperson Jonathon Geddes said about 10am Friday morning power went off to about 14,000 customers in and around Moe, Newborough, Trafalgar and Thorpdale.
“Within the hour our team reconnected 13,000 of those customers,” he said.
Mr Geddes said most of the remaining 1000 homes regained power in the afternoon. He said the customers still without power on Friday afternoon were from Trafalgar and Thorpdale areas.
Later on Friday afternoon an unrelated fire broke out at Yallourn Power Station but authorities said it was under control within 30 minutes.
Morwell, Yallourn North and Newborough CFA units attended the small fire inside the station after the call at 2.35pm.
An EnergyAustralia spokesperson said while the fire caused external damage to cabling, power generation was not impacted, adding it was believed the fire started after coal dust ignited in high temperatures.
