Transformer fire at Ross Park Mall fills stores with smoke, causes power outages, police say
PITTSBURGH (KDKA) -- A transformer fire at Ross Park Mall filled several stores with smoke on Tuesday evening, according to police.
Ross police confirmed a transformer fire sent smoke into some of the stores around 3:30 p.m. Authorities said nothing in the building caught on fire and the mall was not evacuated. The transformer was on the outside of the building but smoke made it inside multiple stores.
Many stores closed early on Tuesday after the transformer fire. Only the big department stores remained open.
A video sent to KDKA-TV by a viewer inside the mall shows when the power went out.
The transformer fire came during one of the busiest shopping days of the year, as last-minute shoppers were out on Christmas Eve. An employee told KDKA it was chaotic when the fire was first reported.
"I saw a lot of people feeling disappointed," shopper Thomas Matthew Soekinto said. "They couldn't get food or anything."
Karen Silvera works at Rudolph and Me, a locally-owned kiosk at the mall. She said people had to be guided out because it was so dark in some of the stores.
"Most of our lights went out," she said, "Then all of our lights went out. What happened is we could still use our cash machine, but we couldn't see the light on our ornaments."
Silvera believes the kiosk "lost about $500 in the last few hours of sales because it was very busy. The timing couldn't be worse."
None of the chaos stopped Santa, who continued to take photos with families inside the dimly lit mall.
There were no reported injuries or damage to the building.