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$100,000 in Damage

Monday, 25 November 2013 15:15

The damage total from last Monday's downtown fire is significant while investigators have a new piece of evidence to look at

Damage is now estimated at $100,000 in that fire underneath Market Square in Woodstock.

The blaze broke out in an underground power vault, destroying two transformers and several conductors.

However, after meeting between Woodstock Hydro and the Electrical Safety Authority on Friday, they're still not sure of the cause.

Jay Heaman with Woodstock Hydro says they have acquired some new evidence that may help.  "I don't think this is done.  We're going to upload images for ESA to review.  The other thing that just materialized on the weekend is that the city does have some video footage of it.  So they had security cameras out the back and they were able to see some of the smoke and events there.  They saw the fire trucks go by, so we're hoping that will help us piece a little more of the timing of the event."

Heaman says the main reason why a cause is so hard to nail down is because of the extent of the damage.  "The transformers were completely destroyed.  All of the conductors had the insulation completely burned off.  You can just imagine...it was a tangled mess.  Whether something made its way in there and caused a short or there was just a failure of a piece of equipment, I don't know if we'll ever know."

Heaman says the equipment in the vault was 10-15-years old and had no history of any issues before last Monday.

The fire caused a power outage that shut down City Hall for 2-days, and was a major inconvenience for businesses in the area.

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