Thousands without power across Winnipeg and southern Manitoba

Pole fires are causing widespread outages across southern Manitoba Friday.

The power went out in a section of southwest Winnipeg just before 11 a.m., affecting at least 700 customers.

In Winkler, 7,200 customers were without power after a pole fire in that area.

There was also an outage impacting about 680 customers in Portage La Prairie.

In a tweet, Manitoba Hydro said it had a number of outages caused by pole fires.  Those are often caused when dirt and moisture combine on insulators and create a pathway for electricity to travel from the power line to the wood pole.

Manitoba Hydro said more than 530 customers north of Winnipeg won’t have power until 10 p.m. Friday after a broken pole on Pipeline Road. Hydro expected it would take crews about six hours to replace the pole.