News File Photo The Alpena Power Company logo appears on the side of a utility truck in this March 2022 News archive photo.

ALPENA — Multiple businesses along Bagley Street in Alpena lost power Sunday morning when a squirrel shorted out a 6,000-plus-volt power line and caused a pole fire, according to the Alpena Power Company.

“He was in the wrong spot, but he will not do it again,” said Alpena Power Company Chairman Steve Fletcher.

Workers find “crispy critters” at the bottom of power poles several hundred times a year, Fletcher said.

Most squirrels, birds, and other animals do not cause a fire when they short out the power line. When poles do ignite from the flash of a shorted line, the poles’ oil-based preservative spreads the fire.

A power company has to wait until firefighters extinguish a burning pole before turning power back on, because, “squirting a hose on an energized current is not a good thing,” he said.

Sunday’s pole fire required an eight-minute shutoff around 9 a.m. for 667 residential and business customers south of M-32 and north of 3rd Avenue.

Multiplied by more than 600 affected customers, those eight minutes added up to several thousand minutes without power, and power companies know those minutes matter, Fletcher said.