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Uploaded: Tuesday, July 3, 2012, 5:15 PM
Updated: Thursday, July 5, 2012, 7:44 AM
Tuesday afternoon fire, power failure in Pleasanton blamed on bird
Wings touch two live wires, causing shorts, fire, overhead transformer failure
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by Jessica Lipsky
Pleasanton Weekly Staff
Photos
 
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| Electric power was cut to hundreds of residents in southwest Pleasanton Tuesday afternoon after a bird caused a series of transmission line shorts that led to a fire and a transformer loss.
Battalion Chief Jack Neiman-Kimel of the Livermore-Pleasanton Fire Department said the bird was perched on a power line on Sycamore Drive at Dalton Creek Way when it spread its wings. The wings touched two lines causing a major short with the electrocuted bird dropping into the field below, causing a fire.
At the same time, the damaged lines triggered an electrical failure at Sycamore Way and Sycamore Creek Road, causing a transformer to burst into flames and fall to the ground from its overhead position to the lawn near 476 Sycamore Drive , causing more outages.
Neiman-Kimel said neighbors heard a loud explosion when the transformer fell and called 911 at 3:53 p.m. Firefighters were on the scene in minutes and extinguished the fires within 15 minutes.
PG&E crews also responded and said power should be restored to the neighborhood by about 6:45 p.m.
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| Comments
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Posted by Lydia , a resident of the Southeast Pleasanton neighborhood, on Jul 3, 2012 at 9:29 pm I Just want to commend the firefighters. Our power went out and not four minutes later we heard sirens. That was an amazingly fast response time! Thank you Pleasanton firefighters!
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Posted by Neighbor , a resident of the Sycamore Heights neighborhood, on Jul 4, 2012 at 6:46 am Power came on in Sycamore Heights at 5:30am. Thank you Pleasanton Fire Dept and PG and E for all your hard work.
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Posted by steven, a resident of the Stoneridge neighborhood, on Jul 4, 2012 at 6:47 am A bird caused it? What kind of a bird? Like a loon maybe? Like one of the many liberal loons that fly over our city and drop there ecsrament onto patriotic P-towners?
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Posted by Susan, a resident of the Bridle Creek neighborhood, on Jul 4, 2012 at 9:01 am Can't you just be grateful that the fire dept and others worked so hard to do the right thing? why do you always need to throw your political garbage into everything? You are really the Loon!
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Posted by birdLover, a resident of the Birdland neighborhood, on Jul 4, 2012 at 11:02 am Poor bird! Wish it did not have to die.
RIP.
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Posted by b, a resident of the Another Pleasanton neighborhood neighborhood, on Jul 4, 2012 at 6:04 pm That's right, Steven. Another liberal conspiracy. Gotta keep those union firefighters employed, ya know?
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Posted by Klisvak, a resident of the Another Pleasanton neighborhood neighborhood, on Jul 5, 2012 at 7:00 am Susan, the comment from Steven is not correct. No loon. Nonsense. The power outage was caused by George Bush.
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Posted by steven, a resident of the Stoneridge neighborhood, on Jul 5, 2012 at 7:52 am Power outage? What about power outRage? We have a president rolling dice out in back of the White House with Eric Holder and his zuit suit wearing gun giving away friends and if he gets a second term theirs bound to be a shark tank in the Green Room. Its all so disenguous. Fo power outages to make us sensitive to Al Gore's big house being threatened by the Sun. Wake up people. The global warming advocates are in our mist. A bird? Likely story!
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Posted by Dave Q, a resident of the Another Pleasanton neighborhood neighborhood, on Jul 6, 2012 at 1:45 am Hm, now terrorist birds are coming over here on BART, transfering to the #8 bus, to cause power failures and start fires!!!! I'll bet that the real truth about the 9/11 attack on the Pentagon!!! Steven, how could you miss that!!!
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Posted by Cholo, a resident of Livermore, on Aug 31, 2012 at 1:19 pm steve is the loony bird
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