Wednesday evening storm leads to fire

A powerful storm that moved through the Nevada area on Wednesday evening left downed limbs in its wake, was the direct cause of a structure fire first reported in the Thursday edition of the Nevada Daily Mail and resulted in a number of KCP&L customers going without service.

High winds associated with the quickly-moving storm knocked limbs and power lines down near a house at 506 N. Colorado. While utility crews were on the scene to repair the lines, the resident went inside and discovered smoke, according to Nevada Fire Chief Robert Benn.

When they responded to the scene, Nevada firefighters "found light smoke coming from the front door, and found a small fire just inside the structure at the breaker box.

The utility crew was still on the scene and trying to get their vehicle out of the way when the fire department arrived, said Benn. The limbs falling on the power line caused a surge in power, which in turn "caused an arc in the structure that had the fire." Damage to the structure and contents is estimated at $1,000, a NFD press release said.

The fire department also received "three or four calls" said Benn, that turned out to be transformers arcing because of the high winds causing contact with branches. Benn's department only responded to the one incident; the others were addressed by KCP&L.

A spokesperson for KCP&L said that several customers in the Nevada area lost power between the hours of 8 and 9 p.m., Wednesday, as a result of the storm. Some of the customers had their power back on very soon, others had to wait longer for their lights and other conveniences to be restored to working order. Specific figures as to how many customers were without power and how long the outages lasted weren't available.

On Thursday, another brief storm tore through the area, bringing with it heavy rain and some pea-sized hail.