Electricity restored after bird's nest fire cuts power in Tiffin

7/7/2014

Power has been restored to Tiffin electric customers after a bird‘‍s nest caught fire and triggered an automatic safety switch that temporarily shut down operations and left more than half the city in the dark, according to AEP Ohio officials.

More than 4,400 customers were affected, said company spokesman Gerri Flora. The company’‍s Web site reported that all customers had their power restored by 11:30 a.m. today.

The nest fire, which was reported at about 10 a.m., burned a cable that caused the company‘‍s equipment to stop automatically because it sensed a problem, Ms. Flora said.

These problems do occur occasionally when birds build their nests on warm equipment that can become too hot and cause the nests to ignite, Ms. Flora said. No birds were injured in the fire.