Heat causes transformer to fail knocking out power to nearly 2,000 residents in Northeast Fresno

FRESNO, Calif. (KFSN) -- Emanuel Legere said he heard a big bang Tuesday night when he was smoking a cigarette outside his apartment complex.

"Then I see a big cloud of smoke going up in the air," said Emanuel Legere, Fresno.

But it's what Legere saw seconds later that had him worried.

"The next thing you know where there's a big flame."

Those flames Legere said were at the corner of Barstow and Fresno.

"The flame was about this high-- I mean it was pretty high and you could see blue flames coming from it, sometimes it was red."

After firefighters put it out, Legere told us PG&E crews stepped in, repairing a problem involving the underground transformer that failed because of the heat.

It left Legere and nearly 2,000 others without power for hours.

"It was miserable, oh my God-- lucky for me I had air conditioning on before it went out so my apartment was like a refrigerator."

Earlier in the day, as the sun beamed over the power lines, PG&E crews spent time restoring power to this Southeast Fresno neighborhood. Dozens of families had no electricity and no AC.

"It feels like you're living in an oven or something," said Esteban Trejo, Fresno.

Unsure of when it would come back on, parents hosed down their kids with water as they stood in a wading pool to survive the blistering weather.

"It was very hot-- the baby was all red," said Yajarie Rodriguez, Fresno.

A tough reality for people all over the Central Valley on the fourth consecutive day of triple digit temperatures.