PG&E had another major problem on its hands Thursday, 24 hours after it was dealing with an unplanned power outage that impacted the entire Ferry Building.
A few blocks away from the Ferry Building, on the 100, 200, and 300 blocks of California Street, and the 100, 200, and 300 blocks of Front Street, smoke was reported coming out of underground vaults Thursday morning around 6 am. A shelter-in-place order was subsequently issued for the area.
As the Chronicle reports, four manhole covers blew off into the street, due to pressure from electrical fires in the vaults, which are concrete enclosures containing transformers and other components.
As KPIX reports, the fires led to a power outage in the area, and the streets around the vaults were all cordoned off Thursday morning. No injuries have been reported.
SFFD spokesperson Captain Jonathan Baxter, told the Chronicle that "nothing is leading to anything nefarious or intentional,” and, "It just looks like this is unfortunately another fire caused by electrical malfunction."
Both fire department and PG&E crews were reportedly on site addressing the electrical fires.
It remains unclear if today's problems are linked to the unplanned outage on Wednesday which also only impacted a few hundred PG&E customers nearby on the waterfront, including the Ferry Building — which remained dark for over four hours as a result.
Vault fires occur periodically around the city, and one explosion in an electrical vault in Pacific Heights three years ago led to multiple shattered windows in the area.
A similar downtown vault fire occurred just two weeks ago, with smoke coming from a manhole cover at First and Mission streets.
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