A station associated with News-Press & Gazette’s Gulf-California Broadcast Company for decades is assessing the damage caused by a fire that prompted “News Channel 3” to abandon its early-morning newscast on Thursday just minutes before going live on the air.
The 5am broadcast was scrubbed as staffers were evacuated from the offices and studios of KESQ-TV in Palm Springs, Calif., with a fire called in to Cal Fire’s Riverside Unit at 5:03am Pacific.
Flames were visible in the rear of the station’s facility, and quickly extinguished by the fire department. Inside, the building’s sprinklers went on, causing damage to some of the news production and operational equipment even as morning co-anchor Jeff Stahl did what he could with a fire extinguisher.
On Instagram, KESQ morning co-anchor Angela Chen remarked that viewers could see the alarms going off some 30 seconds into the morning newscast. The senior producer told Chen via her earpiece that some of the graphics tools were not functioning. Chief meteorologist Patrick Evans via Facebook Live shared how he spotted flames behind the news studio in an equipment room.
By 5:25am, Chen had shared, the fire was extinguished and all were safe. “But the smell of smoke is acrid throughout the studios and building and our studio is covered in about a half an inch of water from the overhead sprinklers,” she said.
Meanwhile, network programming preempted local newscasts until Noon Pacific on Thursday.
NPG Media is also the home of Palm Springs’ low-power CBS and FOX affiliates; and LPTV stations for The CW Network and Telemundo.
