Power plants and substations have been around for quite some time, so ample engineering experience exists and the public is familiar with their equipment and structures (i.e. transformer, circuit break, transmission lines, etc). They also have a substantial economic incentive to prevent accidents. In spite of mature technology, good management, and incentives to keep the plant or substation from blowing up, uncontrollable fire rages within them on occasion, killing operators and causing substantial losses. Fire in substations range from those which have a relatively minor impact, in which there is little or no interruption of the operation to the interconnect network to major catastrophe: the blackout in Buenos Aires, Argentina in 1995 being synonymous. While the engineers who design the substation have the knowledge and understanding to recognise the fire hazard throughout the system interactions and take measures, which will reduce the risk of a fire occurring, it is the substation operators who are responsible for its safe operation on a day-to-day basis. They must be aware, not only of the inherent hazard of the process of which they are in charge, but also of what can go wrong and, perhaps more importantly, how it can go wrong. However, professional fire safety practice today is dominated by traditional regulatory codes, standards and insurance considerations that are based on our past experience, i.e. failures. These methods should be suffice in a simple workplace producing simple and unchanging products or services. However, today's power plant or substation are rarely simple and unchanging. Their complexities require a more effective approach to fire safety. A new way of thinking is essential. It should enable us to use the wisdom of past experience and state-of-the-art knowledge in foreseeing fire hazard interactions. The approach to fire and explosion espoused in this paper is based on performance. The performance analysis involves two steps: scenario identification and consequence analysis. It was based on fire dynamics principles, structure engineering and data. The relevant data includes CIGRE failure data, fire accident reports and CHESF maintenance experience on equipment. The analysis focus is on the difficulties that the hydroelectric plants and the transmission sector in Brazil have in tackling fire protection. They make no allusion to the need to take the fire risks that could lead to some type of impact in the interconnected network into consideration. It is hoped that the performance analysis in this study will shed some light on our ability to anticipate unwanted interactions along a hydroelectric plant or substation life circle. (C) 2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.