Residents south of Sydney have been advised to stay indoors as dense black smoke from a burning electricity substation blankets the area.
After reports of explosions, a Transgrid facility near the Tallawarra Power Station on the banks of Lake Illawarra exploded into flames in dramatic scenes.
The Tallawarra station, which serves up to 200,000 houses in NSW, was shut down for two hours due to the fire.
Shellharbour Airport, 90 minutes south of Sydney, was forced to close on Saturday afternoon due to a fire that was thought to have started when oil supplies caught fire.
Fire and Rescue NSW reacted to “several” triple-0 reports reporting explosions at the plant, which resulted in massive plumes of smoke.
Hundreds of thousands of people in Wollongong and Unanderra were advised to stay indoors due to the smoke from the roaring fire.
On social media, Fire and Rescue NSW warned that ‘large volumes of smoke from the fire are impacting the Wollongong and Unanderra districts.’
‘Until the air quality improves, residents are advised to remain indoors with windows and doors closed.’
The fire service sent 16 trucks to the site where it is understood more than 100,000 litres of oil caught on fire.
The massive fire might burn for up to four days, according to reports.
Shellharbour Airport in Albion Park was forced to close due to the fire.
On Saturday afternoon, black smoke filled the air and could be seen over the Illawarra region of New South Wales’ south coast.
The incident was first reported at Tallawarra, a gas-fired power facility owned by EnergyAustralia near Yallah Bay.
But the company’s spokesperson told Daily Mail Australia Tallawarra is not on fire.
‘One of the redundant transformers at Dapto substation has mechanically failed resulting in a contained oil fire,’ Transgrid said in a statement.
The Transgrid spokesperson said the fire ‘will not impact the electricity supply to customers’.
But a statement from Energy Australia said ‘The incident resulted in Tallawarra power station coming offline for around 2 hours.’
‘The team at Tallawarra safely returned the plant to service at around 5:15pm where we will be there to support the evening peak.’
Transgrid operates and manages the high voltage electricity transmission network in NSW and the ACT.
Despite the health warnings from Fire and Rescue NSW, Transgrid said in its statement ‘The smoke emanating from the site is not toxic.’
Fire crews were trying desperately to extinguish the blaze on Saturday.