SARANAC LAKE — Verizon representatives say an equipment fire inside the company’s building on Church Street caused a network outage last Friday, May 7, which lasted for several hours, leaving phone and internet customers without service in Saranac Lake and Tupper Lake.

The fire started Friday afternoon. The Saranac Lake Volunteer Fire Department got there at 1:19 p.m. and found the circuit fire had been extinguished before their arrival.

“Our technicians repaired the damage and replaced the equipment to fully restore services later that day,” Verizon Public Relations Manager Chris Serico wrote in an email.

During the outage, Saranac Lake residents reported having difficulty making calls or sending texts unless their phone was connected to Wi-Fi internet — as long as that internet service was not from Verizon. Customers with Verizon DSL home internet service reported outages as well.