Fire Destroys Brown Publishing Pressroom

By: Jim Rosenberg When The Madison Press in London, Ohio, burned to the ground 36 years ago, "that's what took us from letterpress to offset," said Publisher David Copen, adding that his five-day, 6,000-circulation paper is rumored to have been the state's first offset-printed daily.

A fire last Saturday night took out the Brown Publishing Co. operation again. This time, however, only its pressroom was seriously damaged.

"We didn't miss any publication days, nor will we," said Copen, noting that a Brown operation in Tipp City has printed his weekday paper and that the group has two other nearby sites, in Troy and Xenia, also able to assist. The Madison Press also prints some weeklies.

"Double fire walls between the pressroom and the rest of the building kept it to the pressroom," said Copen, adding that the damage was "fairly extensive." The Goss Suburban press is inoperable, and although the assumption is the press will be salvageable, said Copen, ancillary pressroom equipment was a total loss. The publisher guessed that full operations in London could resume in "maybe six weeks or so."

The newsroom and other areas had only smoke damage, and IT staffers worked around the clock to ensure that all computer systems would function, according to Copen.

Monday's Madison Press reported that a passerby called in the fire shortly before 9 PM Saturday. The local fire department's first unit arrived at the cinder block structure within 20 seconds, followed within a minute by others, according to Fire Chief Matt Noble.

"The pressroom was vacant" at the time, said Copen, and none of his employees was injured. Two firefighters were treated at the scene for heat exhaustion and dehydration. Noble told the Madison Press the fire was contained in about 90 minutes.

Though the cause of the fire "is still under investigation," said Copen, "the state fire marshal concluded his investigation on Sunday." Noble told the paper that although no exact cause has been determined so far, the state fire marshal ruled out arson.