Chaos ensued in a Waltham parking lot last Friday when three vehicles, including two school vans and a personal car, became engulfed in flames triggered by a tractor-trailer mishap. WHDH reports that the incident occurred around 11:15 a.m. at the Milestones Day School parking lot on Totten Pond Road when the trailer snagged overhead wires. The downed live wires prevented fire crews from immediately extinguishing the fires due to the danger posed by the high voltage.
According to the Waltham Fire Department's Lt. Mike Murphy, “It was just a little tall, the wires may have been drooped down a little bit and it caught part of it, that pulled it down and set off a chain reaction." The truck driver managed to exit the vehicle unharmed, while firefighters had to await the de-energization of the lines by Eversource before tackling the fire.
The electrical chaos led to an evacuation of Milestones Day School students who were preparing for their regular pick-up, which was, in turn, delayed by the incident. Eversource swiftly acted, de-energizing all their wires and equipment remotely by 11:20 a.m., as stated by a spokesperson in an WHDH interview, and affirming that power was soon restored to nearly all the 600 customers initially affected.
Although no one was injured, the day was disrupted for nearby businesses and inhabitants, with workers being ordered to stay in place and one person getting stuck in an elevator due to the power outage. Nearby, workers like Jay Copson, a worker at a data center, found themselves grappling with the unfolding situation. Copson told Boston 25, “I had no idea,” following which their center had to resort to backup fiber lines to maintain operations.
The vehicles that had caught fire were eventually hosed down and towed away once it was safe to do so. Motorists were advised to avoid the area encompassing Border Road, 5th Avenue, and 5th Avenue at 3rd Avenue as the investigation into the incident continues.
