AN ELECTRICAL substation in Kilwinning has exploded, cutting power to more than 200 homes.

The substation at Nethermains Industrial Estate in Blacklands, Kilwinning burst into flames on Wednesday, November 19 at 9.15pm causing a huge explosion.

It is not clear whether the fire was started maliciously or was the result of an accident or electrical fault and investigations are continuing.

More than 200 residential and business properties lost power for 25 minutes while firefighters from Kilwinning and Dreghorn joined forces with Scottish Power to deal with the blaze.

But fires crews were unable to put the flames out until Scottish Power bosses had isolated the electricity supply.

Station Manager Derek Davidson (pictured) said: “Although the substation was well alight due to the nature of the incident and the risk from high voltage electricity no firefighting operations could be undertaken until Scottish Power confirmed the electrical supply had been isolated and earthed.” He added: “We initiated an inner cordon around the risk area and our colleagues at Police Scotland provided an outer cordon to maintain public safety while the operational crews adopted a defensive stance awaiting isolation by Scottish Power. After ensuring the appropriate measures had been put in place the fire crews used a hose reel jet to extinguish the flames before handing the incident over to Scottish Power for repair.” A spokesman for Scottish Power said: “We are still investigating the cause of the fire. We estimated that around 200 customers, the majority of which were residential, lost power for around 25 minutes following the fire. The remainder were all reconnected by 11pm that night.”