VIDEO: Monday morning, the Ashland Fire Department responded to a report of a smoking transformer next to the Ashland Grace Church of the Nazarene.
Soon after they got there, the transformer exploded.
“Sometimes there’s just a little bit of smoke and that’s it, and sometimes there’s a big explosion,” said Brad Maggard, the fire marshal for the Ashland Fire Department.
People who saw the explosion said it sounded like a bomb.
“Generally it’s not that big of a deal till the power company gets there and isolates the power and sometimes there’s some awe factor like there was yesterday with an explosion,” Maggard said.
Maggard says these explosions happen when a transformer goes bad, a wire is shorted, there is a cross in the line or the electrical system is damaged.
“Explosions aren’t common, but we go to power line problems and transformer fires pretty regularly a couple times a month easily,” Maggard said.