The fire at PGE Mission substation Saturday struck 22 years to the day after a strikingly similar fire, which ultimately triggered regulatory sanctions against the utility. Those sanctions centered around failure to implement improvements to its system.   The three-story concrete substation at 8th and Mission streets accepts high voltage transmission power and distributes it at lower levels throughout San Francisco. CPUC records show the utility was penalized $6.5 million by state regulators stemming from the December 20, 2003 fire, ordering the utility to spend the money on substation improvements in lieu of a fine. The fire hit during peak shopping season and left more than 120,000 customers in the dark for several hours. In their findings, CPUC regulators faulted the utility for not immediately alerting fire officials about the 2003 fire, noting that the notification occurred two hours after the first sign of trouble. During their probe, regulators also uncovered a similar fire hit the same substation back in 1996. The CPUC’s review of the 1996 and 2003 fires noted that PGE had failed to follow its own internal recommendations stemming from the initial 1996 fire. The CPUC report called the utility’s failure to heed its own guidance after the first fire to be “quite troubling” and noted that there would likely have been far less disruption had PGE made the improvements it had previously recommended. ...read more read less