A fire at Brewery City Pizza in Tumwater Friday left 2,000 without power

A Brewery City Pizza restaurant on Capitol Boulevard in Tumwater caught fire Friday morning when a power line fell onto the building.

The fire triggered a power outage that affected about 2,000 Puget Sound Energy customers, a spokeswoman for the city said.

Power needed to be shut off in the area so that crews could fight the fire, city spokeswoman Ann Cook said.

A preliminary investigation by Tumwater fire crews revealed that an excavation crew, working close to the pizza business, hit a communication line with an excavator about 10:20 a.m. Friday. That created tension on the power pole, which caused a power line to fall onto the building, Cook said.

At 10:50 a.m. the call was upgraded to commercial fire when electrical arcing from the power line on the metal roof sparked. PSE crews disconnected the power service to the area so fire department crews could flow water to the roof and exterior of building.

PSE spokesman Andrew Padula said most power was restored shortly after noon Friday.

The power outage created some traffic problems in the area, Cook said.

Fire crews shut down Capitol Boulevard from Trosper Road north to M Street, she said. Also, traffic signals went dark.

Cook reminded drivers that a dark traffic signal should be treated as a four-way stop.

South Sound YMCA announced there would be no Y-care Friday afternoon at Tumwater Hill Elementary because of the outage.

Tumwater fire received assistance from several fire crews: Black Lake/McLane, East Olympia, Lacey and Olympia.

No one was injured in the morning blaze, Cook said. Brewery City announced late Friday that the Tumwater pizzeria will be closed until further notice, but that west Olympia and Lacey locations will in some cases be able to deliver to Tumwater.

This story was originally published June 7, 2019 at 10:56 AM.