BELFAST – Thousands of area residents were without electrical power for most of the afternoon and early evening Saturday when a transmission line at a substation off the Route 1 bypass failed because of a fire.

A Central Maine Power Co. spokesman said power was down for about 21/2 hours in Belfast and for about 71/2 hours in the surrounding communities while work crews fixed the problem. He said the outage was likely weather-related.

“When you get wet, foggy weather, heavy moisture, the insulators can crack and that’s what happened,” he said Sunday. “The pole top caught fire and shut down the system.”

Initially, 5,483 customers were affected when the pole caught fire at 1:55 p.m. Saturday. By switching circuits, power was restored to 1,950 customers in Belfast, including Waldo County General Hospital, at 4:48 p.m.

But that switching of circuits caused an additional 1,639 customers to lose power until the grid was completely restored at 8:20 p.m.

Besides Belfast, customers in Lincolnville, Northport, Montville, Morrill, Searsmont, Belmont, Searsport, Brooks and Waldo were left without power during the shut-down.

When the outage hit Belfast, shoppers at Hannaford were told to leave their carriages in the aisles and evacuate the store. The hospital and Waldo County Communications Center operated on auxiliary power sources.

City police rushed to the traffic signal at Routes 1 and 52 to maintain a safe flow of traffic. No injuries were reported.