More than 1,600 Sechelt residents were plunged into darkness early Saturday evening after an equipment malfunction caused a hydro pole to burst into flames.
BC Hydro crews, Sunshine Coast RCMP and the Sechelt fire department were called to the blaze near Trail Avenue and Teredo Street around 6 p.m.
Fire Chief Bill Higgs said 14 members were on scene and put out the fire quickly, while Hydro crews cut the power to assess the situation after the fire was put out. RCMP helped with traffic control.
BC Hydro spokesperson Simi Heer said 1,300 customers had their power restored just before 8 p.m. while the remaining 300 or so customers had their power turned back on by early Sunday morning.
"We think there was some sort of an equipment malfunction which caused the fire," Heer said, adding the pole had to be replaced. "We were able to reroute the power supply for most of the area residents, which allowed us to restore power by 8:30 p.m."
Heer also reported several other spot outages up and down the Coast during the weekend and early in the week due to the first official winter storm.
"On Sunday we saw about 10,000 customers throughout the province without power for some periods of time," she said. "In Sechelt and other pockets of the Coast we saw minor outages - due to high winds, trees on lines and the heavy rain. Since this was the first major rain we've had in quite a few months, dust tends to collect on the equipment and the rain can cause arcing on the lines, which did happen in some cases."
