Early this afternoon, the Kirkwood Mountain Resort had closed all its lifts after the ski place's power generator caught fire. Now, the resort is expecting to start operations at about 9AM on Saturday.

A filter in the engine of the resort's power generator managed to overheat and catch fire at nearly 2 PM, and the fire eventually ended up spreading to the entire building that the generator was housed in.

"The roof caught fire and it burned and did not stop burning", said Tim Cohee, Kirkwood senior vice president. Nearly 30 to 40 minutes before the fire actually blazed, workers in the generator's building started to smell smoke, which gave them some time to evacuate the staff and resort visitors.

No injuries have been reported in the fire.

Mr. Cohee has confirmed that while the reservations of guests who were to come to the resort over the weekend have been cancelled, some 2000 guests are still at the resort, waiting for the power to come back on.

"We're feeding folks with pasta and taco dinners", he said.

A full investigation has been promised and the fire is expected to cost the resort “a few to several millions”.