A fire Thursday afternoon, west of Walmart led to a power outage in a small section of the town.
On July 9, a tree caught fire due to a contact with an ATCO Electric power line.
“Last winter our service department had measured the clearance at this location and it had met the required clearance specifications,” said Bryon Schwartz, customer services supervisor, ATCO Electric.
With soaring temperatures last week, especially on Thursday when the mercury rose to 30 degrees Celsius, there was a new electrical load record set that day according to the Alberta Electric System Operator (AESO).
A combination of these two factors caused the wire to sag onto the tree.
The tree had likely grown since the measurement taken by ATCO last winter causing the fire, said Schwartz.
The power line eventually broke and created a grass fire, which was promptly brought under control by the Stettler Regional Fire Department, and no one was injured.
The investigation is still ongoing.