Fire destroys Grand Junction TV studios

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A raging fire Sunday morning destroyed the building housing the TV studios of Hoak Media’s KREX-TV and Parker Broadcasting’s KFQX-TV, knocking the respective CBS and Fox signals off air. Four employees and a cleaning worker escaped without injury after someone rang the entry buzzer and pounded on the front door to alert them to the fire about 8:30 a.m, reported The Rocky Mountain News.


Local coverage of Sunday’s AFC and NFC championship games and other network programming was still available through local cable and satellite providers. The cause of the fire had not been determined. Damage was estimated at 6 million.

Grand Junction Fire Department spokesman Mike Page told the paper the ferocity of the fire, coupled with the honeycombed structure below the first-floor administration and sales offices, prevented firefighters from entering the building.

Most of the equipment, broadcast logs, video library and business records were lost, GM Ron Tillery said. But the station’s transmitters, housed in a part of the basement originally built as a bomb shelter, may survive.