Downed wires caused a vehicle fire on West Main Street at about 8:40 this morning.
Riverhead Fire Department chiefs found the vehicle fully involved in flames when they responded to a call about arcing wires down on a parked vehicle opposite Riverhead Dodge. The live wires had come down and were under the car.
Downed wires set a parked vehicle ablaze this morning on West Main Street. Photos and story: http://bit.ly/1nLV3dX
Posted by RiverheadLOCAL on Friday, February 5, 2016
The vehicle fire threatened a nearby house, but firefighters’ quick response protected the structure.
PSEG arrived on scene within about 10 minutes to cut power to the downed line so firefighters could safely extinguish the fire. Riverhead police, Riverhead Fire Department fire police and Suffolk County Sheriff’s units shut down West Main Street in the vicinity of the fire.
In a separate incident this morning, the winter storm knocked out power to nearly 1,600 customers in Riverhead, including Peconic Bay Medical Center which is running on emergency generator power.
The more widespread outage is unrelated to the downed wires on West Main Stree, a PSEG spokesperson said.
The larger outage, which is affecting the hospital, Route 58 and communities along Middle Road, was the result of a circuit lockout, the PSEG spokesperson said. The circuit problem caused two separate outages in central Riverhead. One outage would be restored by 10:15 a.m., the other would be restored by about 12:30 p.m.
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