Electrical fire sends sparks flying, causes outages in Chicago community

CHICAGO (CBS) -- Nearly 700 customers lost power in East Lakeview Wednesday night after an electrical transformer caught fire in East Lakeview.

The fire broke out in in a transformer alongside the back of a building on Barry Avenue just east of Broadway.

Photos and video of the scene showed what appeared to be wires in flames and sparks raining down alongside a residential building.

ComEd confirmed an outage affecting 679 customers. Crews were on the scene, and ComEd reported at 7:37 p.m. that most of the repairs were expected to be made shortly. The rest would be made when it was safe to do so, ComEd said.

Information from the Fire Department was not immediately available.

In:
• East Lakeview
• Fire
• Broadway