15,000 customers without power due to fire at a substation in Prince George's Co.

PRINCE GEORGE'S COUNTY, Md. — Thousands of residents in Prince George's County are struggling with the heat after after a smoldering squirrel guard caused a fire at a Pepco substation on Tuesday – leaving more than 15,000 customers without power, Prince George's County Fire & EMS said.

Around 4:05 p.m., Pepco said there was a fire at the Crain Highway Substation.

More than 15,000 customers were dealing with power outages as a result, but that number is slowly starting to go down.

Impacted customers live in the areas of Rosaryville, Marlton, Croom, Queenland, Upper Marlboro, Marlboro Village, Meadows, Westphalia, Largo, and Kettering.

Pepco said the company was looking at ways to reroute power and restore service.

Pepco said they were working to determine the cause of the fire, but the fire department said it was the smoldering squirrel guard.

Squirrel guards are generally to prevent squirrels from getting at bird feeders, but these are used to prevent squirrels from interacting with the transformer.

"We understand how disruptive this can be, we are working safely and as quickly as we can to restore service," Pepco said in a statement.

Residents can check for the latest outage information by going to Pepco's outage map.

No estimated time for restoration of power was given by the power company.

This is a developing story. Stick with WUSA9 for updates as they become available.