UPDATE: Power restored to 3,800 in Fort Nelson

UPDATE (6:40 p.m. Friday): Power is out once again in Fort Nelson due to wildfire smoke forcing the local generating station to go offline. To read more, click here.

UPDATE: BC Hydro restored power Friday morning. The article has been changed to include the new information.

FORT NELSON, B.C. — Power was restored to 3,800 Fort Nelson residents early Friday morning after an outage on Thursday.

After almost 24 hours without power, Fort Nelson residents had their electricity restored Friday at 8:45 a.m.

According to BC Hydro, a wildfire in Alberta burned a transmission line that supplies power to Fort Nelson on May 3rd.

As a result, BC Hydro was supplying electricity through the local gas-powered generation station. However, the station was forced off Thursday morning due to smoke and ash in the air from the wildfires across the northeast.

BC Hydro inspected the station and determined power could be restored.

BC Hydro also ordered replacement parts for the station’s air filtration system. To install these parts, a planned outage of approximately three hours may be required, once the parts arrive.

BC Hydro will inform the community when the outage is expected.

To view the current outages, head to BC Hydro’s website.