Tuscaloosa firefighters believe a piece of plastic and a transformer sparked a grass fire in downtown Tuscaloosa Monday afternoon.
It happened around 2 p.m. behind Innisfree on University Boulevard, right next to the federal courthouse.
Firefighters said the fire got big enough to threaten cars parked nearby, but their owners removed them from the lot and none were damaged.
“What happened was there was some plastic that flew up from a job site and got caught in a power line, which caused it to arc,” said Tuscaloosa Firefighter Lt. Jeff Woods. “When it arced it spliced the line, and we had a live wire on the ground.”
Aside from temporarily losing electricity, no businesses were affected by the blaze.