Fire broke out in a York city centre shop today (Tuesday, November 29).
The fire was in the basement of Ancestral Name on Church Street.
Five engines were sent to the incident after a smell of burning was reported after 10.30am. Firefighters put out the fire before investigating whether it had spread to neighbouring properties.
The power was out at many of the shops on Church Street and into Kings Square.
Many retailers had no choice but to close for the day, but Barnitts, which was only partially hit by the power outage, and Thomas the Baker continued to trade.
The owner of Ancestral Name told YorkMix that he would be open again very soon, probably by tomorrow (Wednesday).
He told YorkMix he knew there was something wrong when he opened up the shop at 10am.
“There was a smell of burning rubber and a lot of black smoke. I phoned the fire brigade and the electrical people.”
Martin Miller owns The Milkshack next door to Ancestral Name.
“There was no power this morning. The problem is in the cellar, with soot creeping in from next door.”
Slow burner firefighters looking for cause 5 engines #york pic.twitter.com/MNoeytFV0p
— Gwen Swinburn (@GSwinburn) November 29, 2016
He said there have been problems with the power supply cutting out in recent days. A prolonged loss of electricity would be a big problem as “I have got about eight chest freezers upstairs full of ice cream”.
Most of the fire crews left Church Street by midday, only for the electrical teams to move in to try to fix the power cut.
Northern Powergrid estimates that 30 premises are affected. A statement by the company said that the problem centred around a fault on one of its underground cables.
It estimated that power would be back on by 5pm.