OK - the "strand" is called a circuit - for standard 110V wall/light circuit 3 wires (typically in one plastic sheathing) that, as you say, feeds a string of wall outlets or a set of lights. When you say sockets I presume you mean plug outlets. If you mean light sockets, different story - probably a circuit problem that an electrician needs to look at.
If you have circuit breakers (when you open the door of your indoors electrical panel, they show in your panel as a series of little tabs or switches, that can be switched on and off) then you do not have fuses. If your panel has a lot of visibly exposed wires and cylndrical brass-ended glass tubes, or a row or two of screw-in round thingies (about 1-2 inches in diameter) with a glass center, these are fuses - VERY old school. If you have that and do not know how to change them, call an electrician to do it for you, and (if you feel comfortable with it after watching him), have him show you how to shut off the power main breaker, change a fuse, then turn the power back on. I don't think fuses have been installed as new equipment in the US since about the 1960's, so you probably have breakers, from your description. If you have breakers, there should be no fuses inthe circuit.
Before turning the power back on, you (or the electrician) will need to identify the cause of the failure - fuses and breakers almost never fail without being overloaded. Think what you were doing when it blew (if you noticed the power go out when it happened). Could have been a defective household appliance, bad wiring, shorted outlet (commonly will have flashed, and usually have smoky appearance around one of the two plug openings). Maybe you overloaded it with a hair dryer (VERY common, especially if a new high-powered one, as newer houses have higher capacity bathroom circuits than old houses, so a lot of the new dryers will blow breakers/fuses in older houses) or multiple kitchen countertop appliances used at once (like toaster and microwave on same circuit, commonly). If you can get an idea of what caused it before calling an electrician, it should reduce his charges for tracking it down.
Four things could have happened in your case:
1) if fuse blew, you might not see the break in the wire clearly through the glass, and the wire inside could be broken and you do not think it is. Call electrician as noted above.
2) breaker tripped internally, but the connection lever or bar to the tab (called the breaker switch) failed, so while the breaker shut off, it did not flip the switch to the off location and does not look like it is off. This is pretty common in 25+ year old breakers. If that is the case, you should NOT try to reset the breaker as if you try to turn it on, it can short out internally - an electrician should change it out. If a brandname shows on the breakers themselves (not necessarily the same as on the panel) it would help the electrician to tell him this, if you can see it WITHOUT pulling off the protective breaker cover. If not visible, look for a name on the breaker panel - usually embossed on the outside or on a paper label inside of the door. He will also have to track what caused the overload, if you do not know what it was, as from in 1) above.
3) you could have had a wire come loose or short out (smoked) in one of the outlets, interrupting the circuit - again, call an electrician
4) you might be on a circuit with a GFCI - ground fault circuit interrupter - built into one of the outlets rather than in the breaker box (they can be done either a GFCI breaker, or as a retrofit in older houses, as a GFCI outlet that replaces a regular outlet in the wall). A GFCI (Ground Fault Circuit Interrupter, though some old school electricians call it a Ground Fault Current Interrupter) detects a short from live wire or live current (either in wiring or within a plugged in device) to the ground wire, and shuts off the circuit in milliseconds in that event. All outdoors, garage, bathroom, wet utility rooms (washer/dryer area), and kitchens are required to have these, though depending on your house's age only some areas may actually have it. After checking to be sure no outlets are "smoked", look at each "dead' outlet and see if there is a pair of little pushbuttons in the center (between the two outlet plug openings) of any of them - should only be on one in a given circuit. If so, you may have tripped the GFCI. First, consider what you were doing when it tripped - if you were using some kind of household appliance (blender, coffee maker, toaster, mixer, hair dryer, etc) at the time the power went out, then that device is suspect and should be unplugged and checked out (or replaced, if cheaper) before using it again. If you were not using any appliances or plugged in devices when it went out, I would recommend calling an electrician to check everything out.
To reset the GFCI, there are usually 2 buttons - one labelled Reset or On, one labelled Test. After unplugging the suspect appliance, firmly but quickly press in on the reset button - do NOT hold it in. It should stay "in" - roughly flush with the plug surface. If it pops back out, then you have an electrical ground fault. If you unplug everything plugged in on that circuit and it will then reset, then one of the appliances has an electrical fault. If it will not stay in then you have a circuit problem or failed GFCI and need an electrician.
If it does stay in OK, then press the Test button. The Reset button should pop back out and the circuit should be dead again. This is how you test the GFCI to be sure it is working correctly. If the Reset / On button does not pop out immediately or the circuit is still live after pushing the Test button, then the GFCI has a problem. Do not use the circuit until an electrician tests it. If the test button does kill the circuit OK, then push the Reset button back in to turn the circuit back on and it should be OK.
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