SEATTLE — A fire in an underground electrical vault knocked out power to more than 21,000 customers in North Seattle on Wednesday night, according to Seattle City Light.
The utility said that power was restored to 15,000 customers impacted by the outage by 10 p.m. that evening. Crews continued to work on the remaining residences and buildings without electricity.
The outage initially affected about 4,700 customers in the Northgate and Victory Heights neighborhoods. Crews were dispatched to investigate and later reported a fire in a vault near Fremont Avenue North and North 107th Street.
By 8:25 p.m., City Light said additional electrical feeders had been taken offline to allow safe access to the equipment, expanding the outage to about 21,000 customers.
Seattle Fire crews on scene reported smoke coming from the vault. No injuries were reported, and firefighters confirmed there was no active fire before handing the scene over to Seattle City Light.
An estimated time of restoration has not yet been determined. Information about the cause of the fire was not immediately available.
This is a breaking news update. Stay with KING 5 for developing coverage.