San Mateo County fire nearly contained, but power not fully restored

WOODSIDE, Calif. - Firefighters said they've made good progress, containing a fire in San Mateo County. 

Now, the big problem for neighborhoods affected by the Edgewood Fire is an ongoing power outage.

The wildland fire broke out on Tuesday night in a canyon on the border of Woodside and Redwood City, forcing residents in the Emerald Lakes neighborhood to evacuate. 

"It's just very frightening," Cindy Coy said. "You had to gather things together, important papers and things like that to get out of your house quickly." 

As of Thursday morning, the fire was 80% contained. 

CalFire Battalion Chief Bob Simmons said crews responded quickly on the ground and in the air. 

"The fixed wings came in and painted these little pink lines for us," he said. "Up along the neighborhoods and on the ridges and the helicopters came in and took care of all the flaming spots."

About 3,000 PG&E customers in this part of the county were without power Wednesday because of the fire. The utility worked to restore the power near a substation that was affected by the fire. That number was reduced to 1,100 by Thursday morning  in the area near Edgewood County Park. 

A PG&E spokesperson said crews still cannot get access to some of their electrical equipment damaged in the fire to make the needed repairs.

In a statement, PG&E said: "We are actively looking to connect impacted customers to other sections of our electric system and will begin repairs as soon as the area is made safe and access is granted."

It's not clear at this point, whether the fire broke out at that substation or not. But neighbors did report hearing explosions near it at the time of the fire.

The outage even affected nearby Stanford University, which had to cancel classes and day camps because of it.