More than 27,000 on Westside without power after small fire

More than 27,000 Westside residents were without power for more than an hour Wednesday afternoon after a small fire broke out at a Los Angeles Department of Water and Power facility, officials said.

Firefighters responded to a reported explosion just before 2:30 p.m. at a DWP yard in the 1800 block of South Centinela Avenue, Los Angeles Fire Department spokeswoman Margaret Stewart said in a statement. A circuit breaker had tripped, causing a small fire that was already out by the time firefighters arrived, she said.

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Two power distributing stations were put out of service because of the blaze, which caused the outage, according to the DWP. The Westwood and Pacific Palisades areas were the most affected, the department said.

Crews restored power at 3:17 p.m., according to the DWP.

The outage affected traffic signals in the area, causing major traffic backups at some intersections, officials said.

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