MASON CITY – A large tree snapped in two Saturday evening in a residential Mason City neighborhood, causing a fire.
At about 7:15 PM Saturday evening, an emergency call was made for an electrical fire on North Madison and 1st Street NW. Police and fire personnel responded to the area and discovered a tree that had fallen on top of electrical lines and apparently ruptured a gas line, causing a fire.
Alliant Energy was called to turn off gas to the area, and firefighters had to wait for Alliant before they could do anything about the fire. The fire continued to burn past 9:00 PM.
People of the neighborhood were staring at the giant tree in disbelief. The tree had fallen across N. Madison and onto a car parked across the street.
AS the evening progressed, Alliant crews and Mason CIty police remained on the scene until midnight and beyond as the hulking tree laid across the Madison Avenue. Alliant workers began to try to cut the tree up, bit by bit. A raccoon was trapped in the treet, high above the street. It went back and forth from one end to another, looking for a way off the tree. Another Alliant technician was up in a boom box trying to disconnect electrical wire. Still more workers were digging in the grass on the east side of the street, looking for the gas line that was ruptured. A fire fighter at the scene said that when the tree fell, it came down on a live electrical wire, which fell in the grass and sent a strong current into the ground, which hit, ruptured and ignited the gas line, causing the earlier fire.
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(Photo from NIT reader)
MORE PHOTOS FROM LATE SATURDAY JUST BEFORE MIDNIGHT:
