Valley PBS unable to broadcast over the air after fire burns Bear Mountain

FRESNO, Calif. (KFSN) -- Flames from the Fresno June Lightning Complex Fire raged up the side of Bear Mountain overnight Tuesday, destroying broadcast equipment in the area.

"We are in the process of looking at the ongoing damage inspection. We have crews up there as we speak doing a damage inspection on what actually impacts the infrastructure up there," Fresno County Fire Chief Dustin Hale said.

CAL FIRE says television and cellular broadcast towers are part of the destruction.

"The Verizon cell tower that's down, we've requested them to come and bring their emergency backup to try to bring what's called incident cow and hopefully that will get some cell coverage back," Hale explained.

LIVE UPDATES: Crews battle June Lightning Complex fire burning in Fresno County

While a Cell on Wheels (COW) can get phones working quickly, it will be more challenging to get a television station broadcasting again.

Valley PBS learned late Tuesday night that its transmitter had been destroyed.

"Once we get more of an idea of what they damage is, we'll be able to get a better understanding of what we need to do moving forward," Valley PBS Chief Operating Officer, Robert Mollison said.

Mollison says the station airs a variety of shows on channels 18.1 through 18.4.

"They would all be here." Mollison said while pointing to Valley PBS's tv monitors. "Unfortunately, as you can see, it's dark for the time being."

The station is evaluating options to get back on air but does not yet have a timeline for when that may be.

"Maybe leasing another tower perhaps, or working with other stations to perhaps piggyback with them," Mollison explained. "There's a lot of technical aspects that involve that and a lot of time that's involved in doing that."

Although Valley PBS cannot be seen over the air, there are still ways to watch.

"Those viewers that watch Valley PBS on Comcast can still watch all of our four channels as well as if you go to ValleyPBS.org, you can still stream the channel live and then as well as YouTube TV and Hulu," Mollison said.

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