FRIGHTENED residents were woken by explosions and sparks shooting into the air when power cables caught fire in a York street.

The drama happened in Chudleigh Road, in the Leeman Road area of York, in the early hours of Saturday morning but has only just come to light.

One resident, who did not wish to be identified, said she was woken by what she thought were fireworks being let off at 2.45am.

She said: "We looked out and there were sparks coming out of the street and going 30 feet up into the air, and there were explosions like fireworks or gunfire. It was the cables under the tarmac that had blown.

"I have never seen anything like it. It was pretty scary. I was worried the whole street would go up.

"Everybody came out in the pyjamas, wondering what on earth was going on. It went on for at least half an hour."

She said firefighters were called and they used sand to extinguish the sparks.

She said the fire left cracks in the road and knocked out power supplies and although these had since been restored, households were still without landline and broadband because telephone cables had been destroyed.

North Yorkshire Fire & Rescue Service said a crew from Acomb went to the street at 2.53am following reports of smoke issuing from a manhole cover in the middle of the road.

"On arrival, crews found this to be electric cables on fire and used a dry powder extinguisher," said a spokeswoman. "Crews monitored the situation and left the incident in the hands of the electricity board."

A spokeswoman for Northern Powergrid, the region’s electricity network distributer, confirmed that at about 3 am on Saturday, the company received a report of a fault on an underground cable in Chudleigh Road in York, affecting one customer. 

"The fault on our underground cable caused a loud audible noise with smoke visible from the pavement," she said.

"No one was injured and the emergency services attended. Our engineers attended and carried out repairs restoring power to the one customer affected at 1.20 pm.

"We'd like to reassure customers that faults of this nature are not a usual occurrence."

*Did you photograph or video the fire? Email your images to newsdesk@thepress.co.uk.