Partial Service Restored After Fire at Cable Plant

Partial cable television service was restored to more than 20,000 households in the Inglewood and Westchester areas within eight hours of a multimillion-dollar fire that destroyed electronic equipment at Continental Cablevision’s Westchester facility Monday morning, company officials said.

Continental Vice President John Gibbs said that 42 of the 52 channels were back on by mid-morning. He said the blaze caused $7.5 million damage to the plant and electronic equipment. City fire officials estimated damage at $5.5 million and said they had not determined the cause of the blaze, which took nearly 100 firefighters 76 minutes to control.

The fire affected service to customers in Westchester, Lennox, Ladera Heights, Viewpark and Windsor Hills. Gibbs said the rest of the signals should be back within four days.