Cars and business catch fire from downed Driggs power line
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DRIGGS — An excavator working on a Driggs city water main project hit an overhead power line, causing a nearby power pole and at least two cars to spark and catch fire Thursday morning.
Construction crews were digging trenches for the water-main project at the corner of Main and Depot Streets.
Local business owner Mitch Prissel was driving underneath the power line when the accident happened.
“I was driving down the main drag headed north through the construction zone and the back-hoe hit the overhead wire as a I drove through,” he said.
Prissel said he saw an explosion of sparks, so he hit the gas and kept going since he was driving an open-top jeep.
The downed wire crossed Highway 33, directly in front of two businesses, causing fires in multiple spots.
The larger of the fires caught the power pole next to Total Image Salon, causing two cars as well as a corner of the business to burst into flames.
Joey Hansen with Total Image Salon was coloring a client’s hair when the line was hit.
“I was just putting color on when the power went and it flicked back on and I could hear some sizzling outside the window and we looked out and there was the wire down and it was sparking and it started a fire,” she said.
Hansen’s car was the first to catch fire, but her other customer’s vehicle quickly followed suit.
“We looked outside and we could see the live wire sparking under Tracy’s car and immediately it engulfed the bottom of her car,” Cherry Moss recounted, still in her salon apron. “We stood up, I grabbed my purse and got out of there… All of the sudden it went to my car and starting burning it.”
Moss said her primary concern was her business order inside the car on the front seat.
“I have a little online Etsy shop and I had 20 packages, one of them a custom order over 100 dollars. I’d spent five hours working on it,” she said. “I should have gone to the post office first.”
Hansen said they evacuated the business out the front entrance and then called 911.
She called 911 at 10:39 a.m. according to dispatch.
The Teton County Sheriff’s Office notified Fall River Electric of the situation three minutes later. The power was cut and fire units were able to start putting out the flames at 11:02 a.m.
Teton County Fire units were on scene and were able to extinguish the flames, once Fall River electric was able to shut off the power.
This story originally appeared on Teton Valley News. It is posted here with permission.