Queensland power outage leaves hundreds of thousands in dark We’re sorry, this service is currently unavailable. Please try again later. Dismiss 2.43pm Normal text size Advertisement Up to 400,000 Queensland homes and business were without power after a widespread outage affected cities and towns all over the state. The outage was caused by a fire at Callide Power Station in central Queensland, which took the station offline. A witness reported a “major explosion” at the power station. The fire started in one of the turbine halls at the station near Biloela, about 145 kilometres north-west of Bundaberg, about 1.45pm on Tuesday.