Electrical fire disrupts business at The Columbian

An early morning electrical fire left The Columbian’s communications systems, servers and one press room without power for several hours Tuesday.

Power was partially restored with a backup generator by midday, dispelling concerns the paper might struggle to deliver a print product Wednesday.

The fire occurred about 3:30 a.m. in a switch room and took out power for The Columbian’s phone and Internet system. Servers ran on backup power for about an hour after the fire, but then shut down when the backup batteries died.

Electrical contractors were able to restore phone lines, Internet systems and power to the servers by connecting power to a 600-gallon diesel generator shortly before noon. The generator is burning through a few gallons of diesel gas per hour, but should last several days, said Nate Kostrba, Columbian network and application support manager.

“We’re not out of hot water yet,” Kostrba said. “The plan is to get this rebuilt as soon as possible then get back on city power.”

David Haas, systems specialist for The Columbian’s building management department, said crews aren’t sure when the scorched electrical box will be repaired, but heard it could take a few days just to get the parts necessary for the fix.

Kostrba said the IT department is prepared to continue running systems on the backup generator and had ordered a diesel truck to refill the generator’s tank Tuesday evening.

The cause of the fire is still unknown.

“My guess is it’s just an old electrical breaker that failed,” Kostrba said, acknowledging that he is “no expert.”

The temporary outage interrupted the paper’s e-edition product and advertisements on the website on Tuesday but isn’t expected to affect future products.