Bird starts grass fire, shuts down power
Staff writer
A power failure July 9 which affected roughly 400 customers in Burdick, Ramona, Lincolnville, Lost Springs, and Pilsen is being blamed on a bird.
A bird became stuck in a piece of electrical equipment at a Lost Springs substation at 11:19 a.m., Evergy communications director Gina Penzig said.
Grass surrounding the substation caught fire.
A passer-by called 911, Lost Springs assistant fire chief Brett Hajek said, and stomped out some of the fire himself before the department arrived.
“One of the three fuses was tripped out, and the grass started on fire and burned south toward the road,” Hajek said. “We had it out pretty quickly.”
Power came back on at 1:41 p.m., according to Evergy.
Roughly 50 customers in Dickinson County also were affected by the outage.