Early Sunday morning on September 25th the OVFD responded to a call of a Transformer on fire across from the Burger King on Long Hill Rd just behind Portobello's restaurant. It appears that a few Mylar balloons had become entangled on wires around the transformer and that sparked the fire.
The metallic properties of Mylar balloons have been known to cause these types of fires as well as larger scale power outages such as the one that occurred at an Exxon Mobil refinery in Torrance California that burned for 13 hours. California has been discussing legislation that would ban the sale of Mylar balloons in order to prevent this type of damage.
One of the Mylar balloons that had broken free from the power lines.
Exposed wires after the fire burned through the protective covering along with slight damage to the framing.
