Underground Fire Causes Manhole Explosions In Brockton
BROCKTON (CBS) – An underground fire caused three manhole explosions on Main Street in Brockton Friday afternoon. City officials say a fire to a secondary power line sparked the explosions.
One car, which was parked over one of the manholes, caught on fire. Firefighters were able to pull it off the manhole and extinguish the flames. At least one other car was damaged.
Video from SkyEye captured flames shooting out of one manhole.
Firefighters rushed to block off the scene and evacuate people. There was little else they could do to fight the explosions until National Grid arrived and shut down power to more than three blocks of downtown Brockton.
"We had some smoke coming out of some of the buildings but we really didn't want to enter the basement because we thought there might have been some water flowing. We didn't know if that water was charged," Deputy Chief Mark Baker said.
City officials said National Grid needed to repair as many as six underground areas before power could be restored to approximately 1,400 customers. As of Friday night, service was restored to all but a handful of customers.
Brockton Fire said no one was injured during the incident.
WBZ-TV's Louisa Moller contributed to this report.
