Firefighters hose down Adams County power substations amid heatwave
Amid a scorching heatwave, firefighters from several departments were called to two electrical substations in Adams County to cool off power transformers, records showed.
Firefighters were first called to the Met-Ed electrical substation in the 1100 block of Hoffman Road in Straban Township around 4:51 p.m. on Friday, July 3, 2026, for a public service call.
Soon after, at 5:19 p.m. on Friday, other departments were requested to the "Germantown" Met-Ed substation on the 1700 block of Baltimore Pike in Mt. Joy Township, also for a public service call.
At both scenes, an Evening Sun photographer observed firefighters utilizing powerful water cannons known as Blitz Fire ground monitors, which can flow up to 500 gallons per minute of water.
Radio traffic from the responding fire companies reported that one transformer had been cooled by five degrees Fahrenheit through the use of 5,000 gallons of water.
On Hoffman Road and on Baltimore Pike, water tankers were requested to the scenes, with crews seen conducting two tanker shuttle circuits to provide a constant water supply to the rural scenes.
At the Baltimore Pike substation, large external industrial cooling units were additionally seen placed around the substation's main transformer.
Around 8:15 p.m. on Friday, firefighters began to clear both scenes after reporting the transformers had been cooled off for the evening.
The Evening Sun was not immediately able to obtain comment from Met-Ed about the need for cooling.
At Hoffman Road, Gettysburg Fire Department was assisted by United Hook & Ladder, Greenmount Fire Company, Adams Regional EMS, Heidlersburg Fire Company, and Biglerville Hose and Truck company, records show.
Please consider subscribing to support local journalism.
On Baltimore Pike, Alpha Fire Company of Littlestown was assisted by Taneytown Volunteer Fire Department and Barlow Volunteer Fire Company, records showed.
The need for cooling came amid a heat wave and "extreme heat warning," with temperatures predicted to reach up to 105 degrees, according to the National Weather Service.
Saturday was expected to remain nearly as hot as Friday, according to AccuWeather forecasts, with a high of 100 degrees Fahrenheit.
The scenes of firefighters working to cool the "Germantown" substation of Met-Ed came just a year after a catastrophic failure occurred at the same substation took place during a 2025 heat wave.
Around 5:30 p.m. on Sunday, June 22, 2025, amid the first big heatwave of 2025, a "major failure" of the transformer at the Germantown Substation occurred, initially resulting in 4,000 people without power, Met-Ed said in 2025.
In an outage report filed by Met-Ed to the Public Utilities Commission (PUC) in 2025, Met-Ed's parent company, FirstEnergy, stated that the utility had "experienced a substation equipment failure due to high loading and excessive heat at the Germantown substation."
Heatwave brings emergency energy order
On July 2, 2026, several miles north in Adams County, a large transformer burst into flames at the Hunterstown Combined Cycle Generating Station in Straban Township, a large power generation station that supplies power to around 600,000 customers in New Jersey as part of the power grid operated by the PJM Interconnection.
Previously reported: Adams County power plant blaze shouldn't impact power grid, PJM says
The PJM Interconnection region, which includes around 67 million customers, consists of all, or portions of, Delaware, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, Michigan, New Jersey, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia.
Due to the extreme power demand of the ongoing heatwave, on June 27, 2026, the PJM Interconnection requested an emergency order from U.S. Secretary of Energy Chris Wright to "to take measures to protect the reliability of the transmission grid."
As part of that order, the electrical grid was allowed to increase power generation beyond the constraints of environmental regulations, the order showed.
In addition, the order instructs high-demand facilities that have their own back-up generators on site, such as data centers, to operate off of their generators rather than off the power grid.
That Energy Emergency Alert, issued on June 30, was set to end on July 3, but was extended through midnight on Monday, July 6 after a request by the PJM.
In their extension request made on Friday, July 3, the PJM Interconnection noted that during the "July 2 evening peak, PJM was close to having to trigger the backup generator emergency action, if certain system contingencies were to have arisen."
"As the heat persists into the holiday weekend, the resulting extreme level of electricity demand PJM projects coupled with stresses on physical infrastructure, among other things, raises a significant risk of increasing unplanned/forced generator and transmission outages that may contribute to emergency conditions that could jeopardize electric reliability and public safety," the extension request said.
Harrison Jones is a reporter for the Evening Sun covering Hanover and Adams County. Reach him at hjones@usatodayco.com.
This article originally appeared on Hanover Evening Sun: Firefighters hose down Adams County power substations amid heatwave