THE JOURNAL & TOPICS NEWSPAPERS | WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 19, 2007

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Squirrel Blamed In ComEd Fire

The Niles Fire Dept. responded to a call of a ComEd electrical sub-station on fire at 8300 Golf Road, just east of Milwaukee Avenue, at approximately 10:16 a.m. on Thursday, Dec. 13.

According to Dep. Fire Chief Steve Borkowski, when firefighters arrived on the scene a couple minutes after they received the call, they saw a fire in a capacitor bank on the north end of the sub-station yard.

Due to the equipment belonging to ComEd, the fire department didn't extinguish the fire, but instead had to wait for ComEd officials to arrive on the scene to de-energize or turn it off, which occurred around 11 a.m., according to Joe Trost, spokesman for ComEd.

Trost said the cause of the fire was due to a squirrel getting into the capacitor bank.

"Not one customer was affected by this incident and only one capacitor was damaged from the fire," said Trost.

Borkowski added that no nearby homes caught on fire or injuries occurred.

Trost said the incident is still under investigation to determine any further damage and the estimated amount of damage in regards to cost.

Capacitors store electric charge. They are used with resistors in timing circuits because it takes time for a capacitor to fill with charge. They are used to smooth varying DC supplies by acting as a reservoir of charge.