McMinnville Police Department was left without power and phone lines Wednesday after a fire at Red Road Business Park.
“As far as police operations, it didn’t affect our officers on the street,” said Police Chief Bryan Denton. “They were able to patrol and file their reports from their cars. But it did shut down our business operations at the building. It shut down our computer system and our phones. We were able to have our phone lines roll over to City Hall and we had an employee answering calls there.”
Denton said emergency calls are handled through 911 so there was no disruption in that service, only normal business calls coming into the office. He said partial power was restored Thursday morning and full power was expected to be restored Thursday afternoon.
The Police Department leases space at the front of Red Road Business Park, a large facility which houses several businesses. As you are facing the building from the road, the fire erupted on the right side roughly in the middle of the facility.
McMinnville Fire Department received the initial call at 1 p.m., according to McMinnville Fire Chief Kendall Mayfield.
“There were flames,” said Mayfield. “We put them out and stayed about an hour. We had barely gotten back, maybe for 30 minutes, when they called us back again. The sprinkler system kicked on and put it out that time. It was mainly heavy smoke we were dealing with.”
Mayfield said a leaky roof allowed water to drip down on a breaker box which caused an electrical short. He said it was that short which triggered the fire.