ST. GEORGE — Residents were offered shelter after a small electrical fire cut off power to their neighborhood, leaving many without air conditioning in the heat of the day.
At around 3 p.m. Sunday afternoon, the St. George Fire Department received reports of a small electrical fire in a mobile home park near 400 E. 840 South.
Firefighters discovered that the power lines that enter the park’s main supply box had shorted out and burned up, causing it to catch fire.
Battalion Chief Robert Hooper said all of the units in the park, around 60 homes, were without power.
At the time, the temperature was around 97 degrees, prompting the American Red Cross to set up a “cooling center” at a nearby church at 550 E. 700 South for residents to escape the heat.
Firefighters went door-to-door to notify residents about the shelter.
“We want to make sure we notify every single person that they have somewhere to go and stay cool,” Hooper said.
City of St. George employees worked quickly to repair the lines using a boom truck, while a St. George Police officer diverted traffic away from the scene.
“This is this the second time in the last couple months this has happened here,” Hooper said, adding that he believed last time was an overnight outage.
The power outage is expected to be resolved within the next few hours.
With the power out for a couple of hours already and still a couple more to go, Hooper said he expects it to get pretty hot in some of the units, and that everyone should take precautions.
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