Thousands are without power this morning after someone deliberately cut a hydro wires under a London bridge, causing a fire and large outage, fire officials say.
Emergency crews were called to an area near the bridge at Adelaide and Ada Streets, north of Thompson Road, just before 7 a.m. for a fire, said platoon chief Jamie Britton.
They arrived to a small fire, and a very dangerous situation, he said. The four-inch power line — about as thick as a pool noodle — appeared to be "deliberately cut," he said.
"We actually had crews walking along the river's edge underneath the bridge for quite a ways just to make sure that the individual that did cut this line wasn't injured and in need of a need assistance and we were unable to locate anybody at this time," Britton said.
"It is very dangerous to be going near any hydro line, let alone one as significant as this one."
Fire crews had to wait for London Hydro to come and isolate the power before they could apply water to extinguish the small fire.
London Hydro now has to repair the line, Britton said.
The line can be accessed from underneath the bridge, he added. It's possible someone was trying to access copper wire to sell for scrap, Britton said.
"That's very possible. We do have that quite often, individuals burning the coating off of these wires to get the actual access to copper," he said. "But to cut a four-inch large line like this, it is very unusual. Whoever cut that line is very lucky if they're not injured."
Traffic on Adelaide is being affected, particularly the northbound lanes, officials said.
"We're working with the London Fire Department and there are outages along Adelaide," said London Hydro spokesperson Kathryn Arnot. "It's affecting approximately 2,000 customers."