Blackout in Toronto

A blackout hit much of the Toronto metropolitan area on 5 July 2010 after a fire engulfed a transformer station. Power company managers stated that the blackout began at approximately 1645 local time (2045 UTC) after a large fire caused a transformer station in west Toronto to trip offline. Electricity was reportedly cut to nearly all of western Toronto and some surrounding suburbs. Transportation services were brought to a standstill by the power outage, as the blackout hit the Toronto subway system and surface road network. Power was restored to some areas of the city after a few hours, although firefighters stated that the blaze had extensively damaged electrical equipment at the transformer station.