Fire forces some evacuations in downtown Mpls

by Jessica Mador, Minnesota Public Radio

ST. PAUL, Minn. — A fire inside a manhole in downtown Minneapolis sent smoke pouring into the street.

An underground fire forced evacuations just off Washington Avenue North. One building in downtown remains without power Tuesday evening as utility crews work at the scene of an afternoon fire.

Xcel Energy crews will work overnight to investigate the cause of the blaze, company spokeswoman Mary Sandok said.

"They have been assessing damage and they will be working on making repairs to the system down there," Sandok said."We do have a redundant system so that is why there aren't more outages or anything associated with this."

No injuries have been reported. The fire caused some warehouse district office buildings to be evacuated.

"It was in a manhole where there are some underground cables. We do have some damage to equipment there however it has not caused any widespread outages," Sandok said.