An early morning electrical fire under York Street put downtown residents in the dark Sunday morning.
London Fire crews were called to the area of York Street and Talbot Street at around 4:30 a.m. to reports of flames coming from man holes.
Platoon Chief Jim Holmes tells AM980 they were met with blue flames coming from the street.
“Upon arrival we noticed there was at least two manhole covers that had blown off and there was heavy smoke and blue flame coming from both of them.”
He says they identified the source of the fire as electrical and immediately contacted London Hydro.
“They arrived very quickly and shut down the entire downtown pretty much in order to isolate this area. Once that happened it stopped the flow of electricity to this particular area, so it helped to extinguish the fire and we extinguished the rest of the wiring fire with carbon dioxide extinguishers.”
Holmes says many residents had to leave their apartments.
“We had to evacuate one building as a precaution between the area.”
Residents have since returned to their homes.
The cause of the fire has been determined to be a shorted underground power line or transformer
The area affected an area from Ridout Street between York Street and Queens, east to Wellington Street.
Around 1,100 customers in total were without power for over 6 hours.
Power has since been restored, but work continues at Talbot and York Street.
Source: Electrical Fire Blacks Out Downtown London | (CFPL AM) AM 980
