Another smart meter burns in Saskatchewan
10th fire of its kind this year, SaskPower says
There has been another smart meter fire in Saskatchewan — the 10th this year, according to SaskPower.
This one happened Dec.16 in the White City area, the Crown-owned utility said Wednesday.
The "failure" is similar to the nine others experienced in 2014 where melting or smoke are seen on the device. Other fires started after water leaked into the meters.
The damage in the most recent case was minor.
In the wake of the fires, the provincial government announced it would remove the smart meters from homes where they had been installed. It also launched an inquiry into what happened.
That inquiry found that the corporation hadn't taken customer safety seriously enough before the installations took place. The then-president of SaskPower, Robert Watson, immediately resigned.
The smart meter saga turned into a major issue at the provincial legislature, with the Opposition accusing the government of mishandling the case.
They're called smart meters because they can transmit data without the need for a meter reader on the site.
SaskPower says so far, it has swapped out about two-thirds of the meters. It says all of them will be removed by mid-March.