People flocked to the Mail-Times Facebook page to show their support after Horsham power substation’s number one transformer failed and caught fire just before 6pm.

More than 17,000 homes and business across the region lost power.

Powercor restored power to all customers by 10pm, with some residents back online by 7.30pm.

Warracknabeal’s Carolyn Morcom was one of the many to thank the crews.

“What a great effort to everyone involved. Our sincere thanks to those restoring the power and those fighting the fire,” she said.

Karen Hickman praised firefighters and electricians for their work.

Kathleen Smart praised a job well done to restore power.

“In weather like this boy is it appreciated,” she said.

Leonie Irwin thanked the ‘hard-working wonderful people who worked tirelessly to give us our power back’.

Nardia Elsom thanked crews, but said she thought it was likely a transformer would fail again.

“Horsham is growing but we still have the same old stations,” she said.

“If this happened around a Metropolitan area that was growing then the needs would be met and bigger modern stations would be in place , the people working there do a great job with the old and out dated system and it is time for the people who are meant to be looking out for us in Government to step in !