Power outage hits Clarkston Heights on Tuesday evening

A power outage affecting more than 1,400 customers struck the Clarkston Heights on Tuesday evening, according to Avista Utilities’ online outage map.

The outage was reported around 6 p.m. Tuesday and was resolved around 8:20 p.m. Avista said 1,431 customers were affected.

The outage first started when a pickup truck hit and sheared off a power pole at about 1 p.m. Tuesday at the intersection of 10th Avenue and 22nd Street in the Clarkston Heights, according to the Asotin County Fire District #1.

Avista crews worked on the situation during the afternoon, but had to shut off the power at around 6:15 p.m. to move lines and a transformer to a new pole. Workers managed to complete the task around 8:20 p.m.

During the outage, Asotin County Fire District personnel were called to a reported fire along Sixth Avenue.

“The resident left food on the stove and left to run to the store,” according to the fire district’s Facebook page. “While he was gone the food caught on fire. However, he said the power outage may have saved his home. The outage shut down his electric stove top. When he returned home, there was no power but his house was filled with smoke and lucky no real fire damage.”