Charter Cable services restored

Workers restored cable service to the Dayton, Mound House and Fallon areas by 10:30 a.m. Tuesday and Internet service by 12:30 p.m., according to Carson City Operations Manager Scott Dockery.

A fiberoptic cable that burned in a wildfire behind Eagle Valley Golf Course on Monday night cut service to about 6,500 Charter Communications customers in Lyon County.

The cable was exposed east of the golf course, where it comes out of the ground, travels up a pole and continues to customers in outlying areas.

"Any time you have a fiberoptic problem, it's just a lengthy process to fix," Dockery said.

Fiberoptic cable is typically buried about 3 feet. Where this particular portion exited the ground, it then traveled 18 to 20 feet up a pole. Fire burned about 10 feet of the bottom portion.

Around 7 p.m. Monday, crews began looking for the cause of the cable outage, but weren't able to pinpoint it because of burning fires.

"First they were trying to identify where the problem was," Dockery said. "For a while, they were hampered because of the fire."

Charter crews began restoration about 11:15 p.m. Monday and worked continuously until Tuesday afternoon.

"They were out there all night," Dockery said.

Some customers in the Fernley and Silver Springs area also lost cable television.

"What hurt them was the local broadcast channels that are fed on the fiberoptic cable from Carson City," Dockery said. "They lost those services when the fiberoptic cable burned up."

Customers in Carson City did not suffer cable outages.

• Contact reporter Maggie O'Neill at moneill@nevadaappeal.com or 881-1219.