By Mary O’KEEFE

Glendale police responded to a call concerning an unoccupied run-away truck in the 4800 block of Dunsmore Avenue at 3:57 p.m. on Friday.

When Glendale police and fire arrived, the truck was still in motion. It sheared a utility pole on the west side of the street before stopping, said Sgt. Tom Lorenz.

At impact, sparks flew from the utility cables igniting a small fire in woodchips located on the lawn of a nearby home.

Three Glendale fire engines and two truck companies responded in addition to Glendale basic life support ambulance and one Los Angeles County engine company.

The GFD extinguished the fire using a dry chemical extinguisher due to active power lines in the area of the fire. It had the fire contained within minutes, said Sgt. Tom Lorenz.

The impact resulted in widespread outages with 2,034 Glendale Water & Power customers without power. Within about an hour all but 100 customers had power restored.

Due to the nature of the repairs, about 20 households were without power for an unspecified amount of time, according to a GFD statement.

There were no injuries reported.

The person who rented the truck was a new resident of the 4800 block of Dunsmore moving into a home. Neighbors reported the impact sounded like a large “bang.”

“Mom and I were watching TV and I heard a noise that I had never heard before,” said neighbor Judy Choi who lives next to the home that had the fire. She added that after running outside, “I saw the electrical pole had been hit and there were sparks coming from the pole.”

“I just heard an explosion,” said another neighbor, Jens M. Rubschlager.

Crews worked through the night to remove the truck and replace the pole.

  Mary Okeefe