AUBURN – A man stuck in an elevator at Good Shepherd Food Bank on Thursday night was the victim of an unusual occurrence – an electrical brown-out across a three-town area.

Fire crews freed the man in minutes, and no injuries were reported. But across parts of Auburn, Poland and New Gloucester, several homes experienced partial power or no power at all.

“It’s very unusual,” a Central Maine Power Co. spokeswoman said. “It’s completely unexpected. We’re not sure what happened.”

CMP crews were out in the area of Hotel Road by 9 p.m., searching for the source of the problem. The trouble seemed to stem from an issue at an Auburn electrical substation and was expected to be fixed by later Thursday night, officials said.

The CMP spokeswoman said a handful of outages were reported in a scattered area in those three towns. Callers to a CMP hotline were advised to unplug major appliances, such as refrigerators and furnaces, while the problem was being worked on.

Police said they received no calls or complaints about the outage. Traffic lights were working normally and street lamps stayed lit.

Fire crews rushed to Good Shepherd at about 8:15 p.m. after receiving reports that a man was stuck in the elevator and a fire alarm was going off. A worker at the food bank reported seeing smoke, but no fire was found. The man inside the elevator was freed after about 10 minutes.

By definition, a power brown out is a condition of lower than normal power line voltage being supplied by a local utility or generating equipment. The condition is typically brief, lasting minutes or a few hours. A power line voltage reduction of about 10 percent is considered a brown out.