SEN plunged into radio silence for nearly 3 hours due to fire in building

SEN hosts Garry Lyon and Tim Watson were forced to use an improvised studio after they were evacuated due to a fire “ravaging” their building.

Garry Lyon and Tim Watson were unable to broadcast their radio this morning due to a fire.

Popular Melbourne sports radio station SEN was forced off air this morning due to a fire at its Southbank studios.

The station went dark shortly before 6am this morning, with AFL legends and breakfast hosts Garry Lyon and Tim Watson confirming on Twitter they had been evacuated.

The fire forced more than three hours of radio silence on the 1116 airwaves, before a return around 9am — from a makeshift studio in a radio commentary box at the MCG.

On return, the station initially aired news and recorded programming, before Lyon and Andy Maher were live around 9.30am.

“It’s been a very difficult morning for us,” Lyon said.

Good morning everyone. A fire alarm has gone off in the Crocmedia studios are we are currently off air. Here’s an update from Gaz and Tim 👇 pic.twitter.com/X3dgXaAScQ

— SEN 1116 (@1116sen) June 20, 2019

Maher: “We can’t wait to be able to access regular programming where we can take calls and receive your texts.

“There have been some issues back in our Southbank studio, where fire has ravaged the building and rendered it unusable, so we’ve put together a makeshift studio at the MCG in the radio commentary box. We are pushing through as best we possibly can.”

Earlier, Lyon and Watson took explained the situation to listeners.

“Friday, 6am, Tim and I would normally be getting ready to come down the airwaves, but we have a drama here in our South Melbourne studios,” Lyon said in a video posted on the SEN Twitter account.

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“In the building there’s a fire in the third floor. Thankfully, we were on the fifth.

“Small fire, not a large one, but it’s large enough for us not to be on air.”

Watson said he could smell smoke and other chemicals.

“In all seriousness we’ve been evacuated from the building,” he said.

“We’re waiting for the firemen now who are up on the third floor to alert us as to how serious the fire is.

“We are just waiting now to be given some sort of direction as to when or if we are going to be able to re-enter the fifth floor we’re we can record our program from.”