Hydro One says 'animal contact' was the cause of a brief power outage that affected as many as 14,000 people on Tuesday.

At the height of the outage, power was out from McLevin Avenue to Lake Ontario, and from McCowan Road to Morningside Avenue.

Early reports suggest the outage was connected to a series of small fires in a hydro yard at Ellesmere and Scarborough Golf Club Roads. Hydro One has said the failure was on their part, but has not explained what happened to knock out the power.

The section of Ellesmere between Scarborough Golf Club and Orton Park Roads was temporarily closed as crews investigated, but the road has since reopened.

The outage began at approximately 12:30 p.m., and Toronto Hydro reported that power was restored to the area by 1:15 p.m.