CBC Yukon went off the air for a second day in a row this morning after a faulty fire alarm forced employees from the Third Avenue building and into the street.

"That's the fire alarm again, so we're going to have to switch over to our Vancouver feed,”A New Day producer Roch Shannon Fraser announced shortly before the scheduled 7:30 a.m. newscast. Listeners in the territory were then treated to the local news from B.C. instead of the Yukon.

Karen Vallevand, the station's administration manager, said later in the morning she is unsure when operations from the Whitehorse studios will return to normal.

"Right now, we're on ‘fire watch',” Vallevand told the Star of a system that enables people in a public building without an operating fire alarm on condition a staff member constantly monitors the area for fire.

This morning's estimated 10-minute interruption was shorter than the 20 minutes CBC Whitehorse was forced from the airwaves during the noon-hour news on Monday, after frozen sprinkler pipes burst, flooding the first and second floors of the ageing building.

"It started coming out of the ceiling first, and then it started coming down the wall,” said television reporter Doris Bill, who was the first to notice a water leak that quickly turned into a deluge.

"So we were just pulling my computer and all my electronics stuff, and my personal stuff, trying to get out of the way (of the water). Then it started to spread throughout the building.”

Whitehorse fire chief Clive Sparks said this morning that Monday's sprinkler system failure activated the fire alarm at the CBC shortly after 12 p.m., and six firefighters were dispatched to the scene.

"The minute water starts to flow from that pipe, the alarm system is triggered,” Sparks said.

The fire chief described this morning's alarm at the building as "a malfunction related to Monday's situation.

"There was no more damage and everybody was back in the building within 15 minutes,” Sparks added.

But CBC programming from the Yukon remains hampered by the sprinkler system failure and subsequent flooding, said Vallevand.

"We're taking programming from Yellowknife for today, for the noon-hour and afternoon shows, but we will be feeding some material from this location,” Vallevand said.

Today's noon news was CBC's national edition, not the locally produced newscast. A makeshift regional newscast aired at 12:30 did feature Yukon content.

"People are flying in from Winnipeg, Vancouver and Toronto ... to decide what we're going to do,” said Vallevand.

"The whole north end of the building is quite wet and soggy, doesn't smell very good and the television area is totally affected.”

One of the station's three studios was also rendered inoperable by the flooding.

Vallevand said air quality in the station could force a temporary staff relocation.

Speaking on air to a Yellowknife program host early this afternoon, Russ Knutson, who hosts the noon show in Whitehorse, said the disruptions in the local building are making it too difficult for staff to offer Yukon-produced programs for the rest of today.

A New Day is expected to be on the air Wednesday morning, he added, with the newsroom perhaps being set up in another building pending the completion of the repairs and cleanup.

The local CBC studios are protected by fire from what's known as a wet system, whereby water sits in the pipes, sometimes for years, until an emergency or failure.

After the pipes burst Monday, CBC employees reported a putrid black, oil-like substance oozing from the ceiling.

Meanwhile, cleanup continues at the station, where yesterday, an employee with Dave's Cleaning Service, hurrying to activate an industrial-strength wet-vacuum, described the mess as "bad.”