SACRAMENTO, Calif. — 1 p.m. update:
While the fire has been extinguished on Harris Avenue, SMUD says that customers may be without power until 5 p.m. amid the heatwave.
Lindsay VanLaningham, SMUD spokesperson, said that the extent of the damage could have meant an even longer wait time.
"Power poles can take up to 8 hours to fix, just because they are so involved," VanLaningham said.
She added that SMUD crews are working to make sure power is restored as quickly as possible.
"They're having to replace the pole and equipment from the fire," VanLaningham said of the damages.
If you are without power during these triple digit temperatures, check out these tips for handling an outage during a heatwave.
Original story:
A car that caught fire sent a dark plume of smoke into the air in Sacramento on Thursday around noon.
The fire, which sparked in the 200 block of Harris Avenue in the North Sacramento area, left a car in blackened ruins and damaged a power pole behind a local business.
An outage in the area of the 200 block of Harris Avenue has been reported, according to the Sacramento Municipal Utility District (SMUD) outage map. 261 customers are reportedly affected.
The outage map indicates that SMUD expects to have power restored by 1:10 p.m. The outage map states that the outage is due to "equipment damaged by car."
Firefighters were able to extinguish some of the flames quickly, but the fire had spread to a power pole in the heat. Even as the majority of the fire had been put out, small orange flames were still visible on the car and the power pole.
The Sacramento Fire Department confirmed that SMUD is responding to assess the damage of the power pole. Firefighters were still working as of 12 p.m. to make sure the area was safe while SMUD arrived to secure power.
ABC10's Lena Howland, who is on the scene of the fire, spoke to a neighbor in the area who said their power is still on as of 12 p.m., although the internet and cable were out at that time.
This is a developing story and will be updated as more information becomes known.
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