Squirrel Sets Off Fire, Power Outage
A wayward squirrel was responsible for a fire in an electrical power substation that left 8,600 customers in the city without power for nearly five hours Thursday afternoon, a Southern California Edison spokeswoman said.
The outage began at 12:20 p.m. when a squirrel crawled onto a circuit breaker at an unmanned substation in Mission Hills, causing a short circuit and fire, spokeswoman Kathy Sedlik said.
Firefighters extinguished the blaze in 10 minutes. But the resulting damage to equipment caused customers to lose their service.
Power was up and running for all but 100 customers by 4 p.m. with full service restored by 5:15.
There were no injuries except to the squirrel, which apparently died, she said.
Start your day right
Sign up for Essential California for news, features and recommendations from the L.A. Times and beyond in your inbox six days a week.
You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times.
