Some Boulder County Homes Still Without Gas

GUNBARREL, Colo. (CBS4) – About 17 homes around Niwot, Boulder and Longmont were still without natural gas Sunday evening.

Xcel Energy crews were working to restore everyone's heat Saturday night.

They were relighting pilot lights all throughout the day on Saturday. During some hour periods crews were able to get the pilots lights back on for as many as 400 customers.

At one time there were 7,200 homes and businesses without natural gas.

The outage was caused by an equipment failure.

Crews had to relight everyone's pilot light by hand. Residents were urged not to relight them by themselves.

"We can't reintroduce gas into the system if their appliance is out. That gas would eventfully and potentially flow into their house, then we'd have bigger issues. And actually we don't think that's an error, but it has taken more time. We got most of those shut offs done late Friday night," said Xcel Energy Spokesman Mark Stutz.

Xcel crews are no longer going door to door to restore service. They're asking people to call them at to schedule an appointment.

They say relighting your pilot light on your own could be dangerous.

"We've seen instances in the past where there is a buildup of gas. When you reignite your pilot, you're going to get more gas igniting than you want to ignite," said Stutz.

Xcel said the equipment failure had nothing to do with the cold.