HORACE LANGFORD JR. / PVT Fire Chief Scott Lewis watches as one of his firefighters tries to quell a blaze on a power pole behind Utilities Inc. Tuesday afternoon. Advertisement

A power outage that affected 1,140 Valley Electric Association members at 11:40 a.m. Tuesday, around Basin Avenue and Blagg Road was caused by safety procedures that were deployed during a system upgrade.

VEA Marketing Manager Staci Behnke said crews were performing a system upgrade including larger wire supported by new poles. An unknown event caused a protective device to engage at Basin Avenue and Blagg Road causing the power outage, she said. Safety precautions force a power outage to prevent possible injury to line crews.

Power was restored to all members in approximately 30 minutes.

A second, unrelated outage occurred at approximately 5 p.m. Tuesday, in the area of East State Street at Humahuaca Street. The hot metal from a blown fuse, in the vicinity of Utilities Inc., ignited brush which caught the utility pole on fire which, in turn, knocked out the circuit.

The problem was isolated, allowing VEA to restore power by 5:30 p.m. to approximately 850 members. Replacement of damaged cable took approximately four hours. Power to a remaining seven customers was restored at 9:23 p.m.