Fire Causes Woodland Hills Power Outtage

A fire inside a Los Angeles Department of Water and Power substation in Woodland Hills today temporarily knocked out power to about 4,000 customers in the area, a utility spokeswoman said.

The blaze inside DWP's Distributing Station 136 at 22200 Victory Blvd. was reported at 9:18 a.m. and extinguished in just a few minutes, said fire department spokesman Erik Scott.

The department dispatched about 30 firefighters to the scene, Scott said, adding the fire may have resulted from a transformer coolant leak.

DWP spokeswoman Terry Schneider initially said the fire could have been caused by a squirrel that broke into the susbstation, but now reports there is no firm cause of the fire that's been verified.

Schneider said the fire caused outages to about 4,000 customers in the area around the substation.

"However, all power was restored to those people by 10:30 a.m.," Schneider said.

No injuries were reported and the cause of the fire remained under investigation by the DWP and the fire department, according to officials.