ARLINGTON, MASS. (WHDH) - Thousands of Arlington residents were temporarily without power after a primary electrical line was severed early Saturday morning sparking a massive fire that burned right through the pavement on the street below.
Crews responding to the blaze near the intersection of Rublee and Hibbert streets around 1:30 a.m. found a loose, high-voltage power line arching in the street and fierce flames stretching down the road.
Arlington Fire Lt. Mike Martin confirmed that a primary power line had been severed, sending more than 30,000 volts onto the street.
Officials believe a large, leaning tree may be to blame.
“It just leaned a little bit more,” Martin said. “Once it makes contact with the wire it arches directly onto the tree limb.”
Martin said there was not much he or his team could do to put out the fire.
“We can’t hit it with water obviously for conductivity [reasons]. So basically we are just trying to mitigate and control the situation as best we can,” he said.
Firefighters called the power company to shut down the electricity to the neighborhood.
Things could have been a lot worse if there had been gas lines in the damaged area.
“A very unusual event,” Martin said. “It doesn’t happen often.”
Crews worked to cool down the pavement by spraying hoses and breaking up the road to get to the smoldering asphalt below.
The street has been reopened to traffic, according to the police department’s Twitter page.
Now, it is up to Department of Public Works crews to see just how extensive the damage was.
The power was out for nearly six hours.
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