The show goes on at WFMJ despite a fire at the station this morning

YOUNGSTOWN — An early-morning fire today at the WFMJ-TV 21 studio downtown forced the station’s morning program into the street.

“WFMJ Today” anchors Scott Schneider and Laurie Lehoskey, and meteorologist Mark Monstrola gave the news and weather from the sidewalk along Boardman Street, with the flashing lights of fire trucks in the background. The program begins at 5 a.m.

The fire originated in a record storage area of the basement, and was contained there. A concrete ceiling kept it from going through the floor, said fire Battalion Chief Tim McGarry.

He said crews got the call at 4:15 a.m. He said a fire investigator was still on the scene at 8:30 a.m. to determine the cause.

McGarry said smoke from the basement permeated the building and was cleared around 7 a.m. He had no damage estimate, saying some cables melted.

By 8 a.m., the building was in full operation, though the smell of smoke hung in the air. Computers came back online at 8:04 a.m., though the phone system was still down. The news department’s tape editing equipment was not damaged in the fire.
“Tape editing equipment and computers are the two primary tools of our newsroom, and we have cell phones, so the newsroom is able to function,” said Mona Alexander, WFMJ news director.

Diagnostic work was being done on other station equipment, she said.

Alexander said that the building is occupied all night. “Scott and Laurie called me at 4:30,” she said. “We decided to get the live truck up and running. We kept up a live shot of the building and ran a news crawl [across the bottom of the screen] even when we weren’t giving the news so as people woke up and put on the TV, they were able to see what was happening. We wanted to be on the air as much as we could.”

At 6:45 a.m., the station began running the central time zone feed of NBC’s “Today” show, and then resumed normal programming at 7 a.m.

“Our first priority was to get everyone out of the building. Our second priority was to get on the air,” said Alexander. “Everyone pulled together and stayed calm.