Motorists are being advised to avoid a heavily traveled intersection in downtown Portland while crews from Central Maine Power Company repair a power line that apparently caught fire and caused wires to fall into the roadway.

The incident took place late Thursday night at the intersection of Center and Fore streets near Brian Boru’s, a local restaurant and pub. A photo by WCSH6 showed wires sparking and flames shooting from the equipment.

Gail Rice, a spokeswoman for CMP, said the incident caused more than 300 customers in the surrounding area to lose electrical service.

She said the outage took place around 11 p.m. Rice said she didn’t know when power would be restored, and didn’t immediately know if the incident was storm-related.

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