A fire Thursday evening shut down a pump at a Municipal Authority of Westmoreland County water treatment plant in Bell Township, but a spokesman said there was no resulting interruption in service to customers.

Spokesman Matt Junker said the fire affected a motor that operates a pump supplying treated water from the Beaver Run Reservoir to a water tower, but a backup pump took over.

“The backup is online,” he said Friday morning. “They’re assessing the repair of the one that caught fire. It in no way interrupted the water supply or affected the water quality.”

Emergency crews were dispatched at about 8:30 p.m. when the fire was reported at the George R. Sweeney plant, and the flames were doused about a half hour later.

The plant first went online in 1997 and was upgraded in 2005.

It serves the northern portion of the authority’s service territory, with a capacity of 24 million gallons of water per day.

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