BATON ROUGE - A part of downtown Baton Rouge was without power for much of the day as crews responded to an underground electrical fire Friday.

Entergy tells WBRZ the outage was due to underground cables that were damaged by a "non-Entergy contractor." Officials say the incident also sparked an electrical fire underground.

Smoke seems to be coming out of this sidewalk vent on the corner of Convention and N Third in downtown Baton Rouge. You can smell it in the air, like an electrical fire. Power has been out for several minutes. #wbrz pic.twitter.com/zkqtKpmJVP

— Mark Armstrong (@TvMarkArmstrong) October 19, 2018

Portions of Main Street, Laurel, Florida, Convention, North Boulevard, and St. Louis Street were left in the dark for hours. Several businesses, including the River Center were without power as a result.

The mayor's office says City Hall and City Court have also been closed for the day.

Underground electrical fire is under control. Convention Street closed to traffic. pic.twitter.com/gjJ7UxHl4r

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— Brittany Weiss WBRZ (@MsBWeiss) October 19, 2018