Power cut affects 1,000 homes after lorry fire

More than 1,000 homes were left without power after a fire involving a 32-tonne lorry and a high voltage power line.

Devon and Somerset Fire and Rescue Service was called to the scene in Ashford, North Devon, shortly after 15:00 GMT on Friday where they found that a lorry and its crane had hit the 11KV overhead cables near the A361.

A man was taken to hospital while the lorry and crane were destroyed in the blaze, the fire service said.

National Grid said 1,205 properties suffered outages in total, with all power restored shortly before 21:00 GMT.

A National Grid spokesperson said the incident "affected 1,205 properties in total, with 751 losing power for three minutes".

They added: "The remaining 454 properties had power restored in stages with another 410 re-connected by 4.11pm.

"The final 44 properties were restored by 8.47pm."

The fire service said it had to wait until the electrics were isolated before it could take action.

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