'Never Seen Anything Like It': Electric Pole Catches Fire during AZ Storm

Storms rolled through the Valley on Monday evening, bringing along some damage in surrounding neighborhoods. Fox 10 Phoenix reported that one Ahwatukee neighborhood had a scary experience after an electric pole went up in flames.

A neighbor in the area, Greg Decori, said, "It's the most activity I've seen in the street in twenty years. I was in my office, windows open, nice day and I smell something, and I’m like, ‘what is that? what is that smell?’ We come out and this pole here was completely engulfed in flames. I’ve never seen anything like it before and then the transformer blew ten minutes into it. A couple really big explosions."

Fire crews responded quickly to the situation, putting out the flames.

Captain Evan Gammage with the Phoenix Fire Department said, "We just go in and make sure that the power is still not connected and running through those lines and then obviously we deal with the flames themselves on this."

Nearly 800 customers in the area lost power and internet due to the fire while crews worked to get the services restored.

Decori said, "Literally, we’ve never seen anything like it. It wasn’t just a little fire, it was raging all the way to the top so really, really crazy."