The impact of three fires on the subway wreaked havoc on TTC commuters over a three-hour period Monday morning, and at least two of the blazes can be blamed on melting snow.

The TTC issued an explanation and apology Monday afternoon for the three lengthy delays that paralyzed subway service in the downtown core at the height of morning rush hour.

Initially, a poorly insulated cable near Union Station caught fire in the early morning after melting snow contacted it. Then, a small fire involving debris at St. George Station started, and, finally, the cable near Union reignited later.

The pileup of blazes was a nightmare for passengers. Commuter Gerald Mak, who works in the financial district, said his trip to work normally takes about 25 minutes, but ended up being over three times as long.

“Half the office didn’t end up coming in, and, at the end of the day, I think I should have just stayed at home,” said Mak, who chose to walk from Bloor to Union instead of waiting for the delays to clear.

The TTC’s communication was also “terrible,” Mak added.

“The announcements were very all-over-the-place, because one minute, they’d announce another medical emergency . . . another, they’d announce a shutdown,” he said.

“We were just wondering, ‘What the hell are we going to do?’ ”

The trouble began at 8:18 a.m., when, according to the TTC statement, an electrical feeder cable between Union and St. Andrew stations began smouldering after coming into contact with snow that had fallen off trains or down vent shafts and then melted.

The cable began to arc and caught fire, the statement said; trains were halted for 45 minutes between Bloor and Osgoode stations as personnel put out the flames and made a temporary repair.

About an hour later, the cable caught fire again and service was suspended again, this time for 69 minutes, as crews wrapped the cable, reinforced the insulation and placed it on insulating blocks until crews could do permanent repairs overnight.

Cable fires happen from “time to time,” TTC spokesperson Brad Ross said, and despite regular maintenance, the transit agency doesn’t know when cables will fail until they actually do.

“It’s not a matter of not having funding. It’s not a matter of not doing proper maintenance; it’s an issue of, these things can’t always be anticipated, unfortunately,” he said.

“Whenever there’s smoke in a tunnel, we have to hold service until it’s investigated. We obviously cannot run trains through a tunnel that . . . has smoke in it.”

In between the cable fires, there was a 30-minute suspension between Spadina and Union after a “local pocket of debris” caught fire on the northbound track at St. George at 9:37 a.m. Ross said the debris could well have been newspaper, which often blows on to the tracks from trains or platforms and occasionally ignites after getting stuck on heated or electrified hardware.

Some passengers struggling to navigate the suddenly hobbled system reported that TTC staff directed them to other stations that, when they got there, were shut down.

Ross said this might have happened due to the rapid succession of the delays; while one station might have been open when staff said so, it could have closed by the time passengers actually reached it.

“If there was misinformation provided to our customers by anybody, it certainly was unintentional,” he said.

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“As hard as we work at maintenance, pieces of technology . . . can fail at unexpected times to create an imperfect storm like we saw this morning.”

In its statement, the TTC said it “offers its apologies to everyone affected by these delays this morning,” and that it was “working hard to ensure a better commute home this afternoon.”

The good news is, although Environment Canada’s forecast predicts Toronto will stay below freezing Tuesday, nary a snowflake is expected to fall.