Slave Lake Radio Station Is Back On-Air

The Canadian Press is reporting Slave Lake, AB, Canada's radio startion has retured to the air following a devastating fire to strike the entire town of 7,000 persons.  The Lake 92.7 FM went back on the air Wednesday after a hasty shutdown in the face of the fire.

"We're such a strong community," said Courtney Murphy, news director and morning show host for 92.7-FM, The Lake.

Staff at the radio station are still working from the offices of their sister station in Edson, Alta. But technicians discovered the Slave Lake station's transmission tower was relatively undamaged by the fire, so broadcasts began again Tuesday — an audible signal from a town knocked to its knees.


Alberta Prime Time photo

 "We just continued as usual, doing all our updates," said Murphy.

The station went off the air Sunday after losing power. Murphy had been covering the blaze since the day before, at one point doing live phone-ins from a government plane circling the fire scene.

"When I got out of the plane, our radio station was starting to cut on and off the air," she said.

"We were inside the station, and the power was completely cut to the building and everything went black. (The government) contacted me when we were in the studio and said, 'You know, you need to get to a non-combustible area as soon as possible.' "

The Lake's transmission tower is out of town, but station staff were convinced it had been burned because it was beside a fire lookout tower that had itself been abandoned in the face of encroaching flames.

Staff beat a tactical retreat to Edson from where they continued to broadcast online and kept the Facebook page updated.

The Lake 92.7 Website.

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