Excavator hits power line at LRT construction site causing dramatic sparks

A fire at a Stage 2 LRT construction site in the west end caused some power to flicker Saturday morning.

Video shared to a local neighbourhood Facebook group shows a small, bright fire in the pit where construction on the western expansion of the Confederation Line is taking place near Byron and Woodroffe avenues.

Barbara Fogarty Ferguson described seeing multiple bright flashes of light from the scene.

"First, I saw a huge flash that lit up the entire apartment. I jumped up to look out the window and saw the fire," she told CTV News Ottawa. "I could hear the sizzle from having the patio door opened. The fire seemed to die down at times and then it would get very, very bright again, sometimes so bright that I wasn't able to look directly at it."

Jamie Robinson, the director of communications and stakeholder engagement for the contractor working on site, Kiewit-Eurovia-Vinci, said a worker hit a power line with an excavator at around 7:30 a.m., causing some dramatic sparking, but crews quickly got the situation under control. Power was briefly interrupted to one Hydro Ottawa customer on Robertson Road, he said.

Some residents in the area reported their lights flickering briefly Saturday morning, but there was no larger outage reported.

The Ottawa Fire Service said firefighters were called to the scene but did not have to put out a fire. Ottawa paramedics confirmed no one was injured.

The site is where the future New Orchard Station will be built on the western leg of the LRT, set to open in late 2026.

A similar incident took place last November, when a crane at the same construction site hit a power line, briefly knocking out power to nearby residents.