Power crews around the Greater Toronto Area were scrambling to restore power to thousands of customers who were offline through much of Saturday after a rash of hydro pole fires across the city.

About 8,000 customers across Vaughan, Richmond Hill and Markham were without power as of 10:30 p.m. Saturday.

“We’re dealing with an incredible situation here,” PowerStream spokesperson John Olthuis told CP24. “There are some scattered pockets that might not be on till about 2 a.m.”

He blamed the string of outages on excessive road salt that is usually cleaned off the equipment during breaks in frigid temperatures. However the extended cold period through February meant that crews couldn’t get in to do maintenance, Olthuis said.

The massive outage in York Region affected traffic and shopping in the area Saturday.

Vaughan Mills, a busy shopping centre on Rutherford Road, was without power for most of the morning.

One person on Twitter vented about the traffic disruptions the outage was causing, warning people to stay home.

“If you live in the Maple (or) Woodbridge area, stay home! Took an hour to get from Islington to Keele,” tweeted a user named Toronto.Style.

About 2,700 customers were also without power in parts of Toronto by 11 p.m. Toronto Hydro said they expected crews would work “throughout the night” until all the outages were resolved.

Other large power outages were also reported Saturday in Burlington and Hamilton.