Fire Knocks Out Power in Salmon Creek

A fire in an underground electrical box knocked out power to about 7,000 Clark Public Utilities customers north of Vancouver Saturday afternoon.

The outage started about 1 p.m. and affected the North Salmon Creek and Fairgrounds neighborhoods, an area roughly between 139th and 199th streets, and from just west of the Clark County Fairgrounds to Northeast 50th Avenue, said Mick Shutt, spokesman for the utility.

That area includes Washington State University Vancouver, the Clark County Fairgrounds and Legacy Salmon Creek Hospital. Shutt said power was out at the university and fairgrounds.

A Legacy spokeswoman said that although the lights flickered, the hospital was not otherwise affected.

Crews had restored power to all but about 1,500 customers as of 2:45 p.m., Shutt said. Electricity returned to the last households at 4:58 p.m.

Shutt said the outage was traced back to a fire in an underground electrical cabinet west of Northeast 159th Street and 50th Avenue.

“I don’t remember the last time we had a fire that caused an outage of this nature,” Shutt said. “It’s unusual.”

The outage affected traffic signals in the 134th Street corridor, further snarling traffic in the typically congested area, and a number of businesses in the area.

An emergency dispatcher at the county’s 911 center reported no problems other than deactivated traffic signals.

First online

This story was posted at 3:24 p.m. Saturday at www.columbian.com .

Originally published by The Columbian.

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