UPDATE (7 p.m.): According to PG&E, power has been restored to customers following a small fire at a substation on Rosedale Highway.
"At approximately 4:35 p.m. on Wednesday, 12/9, PG&E was notified of a large outage impacting multiple areas of Bakersfield. When we arrived on scene we found equipment on fire inside the Kern Power substation," said a statement from PG&E. "The fire has been extinguished and all customers have been restored. At one time, the power outage impacted 17,000 customers."
UPDATE (6 p.m.): According to Andrew Freeborn, the Kern County Fire Department Public Information Officer, the power outage was the result of a small fire at a facility on Rosedale Highway and Coffee Road caused by a faulty breaker. The fire is under control, but the KCFD is remaining on-site to monitor the situation.
"Slightly after 4:30 this afternoon our emergency communications center started to receive reports of smoke in the area. They received reports of a potential small fire on the facility here near the intersection of Rosedale Highway and Coffee Road. So you see the large amount of resources that have responded out here this afternoon. Now you have an investigation that is ongoing and the Kern County Fire Department is working hand in hand with the utility workers here on the facility so PG&E and us will continue to monitor the situation. The initial investigation found that a breaker had caught fire. The reason being for that is unknown. But the personnel from the facility as well as the Kern County Fire Department Hazmat Team are on scene, as well as county environmental health and we are doing what we can to make sure there is no potential risk to our community. We feel very good about what we have at the moment. It is a small fire. There are still a large amount of resource here because we want to keep our community safe," explained Freeborn.
As of 6 p.m., over 5,000 customers remain without power.
Over 14,000 PG&E customers are without power in Bakersfield following an outage on Wednesday evening.
At this time the cause of the outage is unknown.
Power is expected to be restored around 7:45 p.m.
This is a developing story. More information as it becomes available.
