SaskPower meter causes fire at Walsh Acres home: neighbour

While the temperature has slightly cooled, the ground is still dry and shifting, and with that comes a risk for older Regina homes: meter fires.

Marcel Bolen was taking a walk with his wife in their northwest Regina neighbourhood when he heard a noise on the corner of Pettingell Street and Rink Avenue Monday evening.

“You could hear this popping sound, and I thought, ‘Oh, this kind of sounds like fireworks,'” described Bolen. “Then I could smell electrical smoke, and that’s when it dawned on me – it’s probably one of those meter fires.”

Bolen, another Walsh Acres resident, said he hasn’t gotten his meter checked yet, but does have a call into SaskPower to get it inspected. In the meantime, he said he’s done some inspecting of his own.

“There was some siding over the conduit, so I pulled that off myself,” he explained. “The meter is tilted a little bit, but it’s been like that for years and everything looks fine, so I’m not too concerned at this point.”

The power was also out for some time in the northwest end Monday night. SaskPower tweeted out that it was due to a fire.

7:51 PM: Regina – Regent Park, Normanview, Walsh Acres, Coronation Park. Cause: Fire. Status: No ETR #skoutage

— SaskPower (@SaskPower) August 1, 2017

There’s still no word on if it’s that blaze that caused the outage.

Recently, SaskPower has expanded its inspection of meters to the entire city of Regina as well as in Moose Jaw.