25 years ago, Moscow’s Ostankino Tower went up in flames. See photos of the unprecedented fight to save it.

Exactly 25 years ago today, on August 27, 2000, a fire broke out at Moscow’s iconic Ostankino TV tower. It started in the feeder cables, which carry the TV signal from the transmitter to the antenna. The source of the blaze was at an altitude of 460 meters (1,500 feet), close to the top of the 540–meter (1,770–foot) structure. The heat was so intense that the steel cables supporting the tower’s concrete structure began to snap. And yet, the tower remained standing.

Half an hour after the fire started, almost all over-the-air TV channels and several radio stations had stopped broadcasting to Moscow and the surrounding region. More than 10 percent of Russia’s population was left without television. For the next few days, top networks like ORT (now Channel One), RTR (now Rossiya), and others had to share backup transmission facilities, mostly provided by the smaller and less powerful Oktyabrskaya tower.

Many Russians’ most vivid memory of that day is the sudden disappearance of television. But at the site of the disaster, an unprecedented operation was unfolding as firefighters worked to save Europe’s tallest tower. Meduza shares photos from that day.

At first, firefighters had no idea how to tackle the blaze. There was no way to get water or fire-suppressant up that high, and the TV tower’s elevators couldn’t be used safely. Initially, they used the elevators for evacuations, but soon that became far too dangerous: the fire had reached the shafts, putting the cables at risk of burning through and sending the elevators plummeting.

The fire spread from the top down: burning fragments repeatedly broke off from the feeder cables and fell, igniting new fires below. One team of firefighters managed to ride an elevator closer to the source to cut the feeders and stop the blaze from spreading. Another team went to assist them: firefighter Vladimir Arsyukov, repairman Alexander Shipilin, and elevator operator Svetlana Loseva — but the elevator they were in fell from around 300 meters (984 feet). All three were killed.

After that, the firefighters’ only option was to use the tower’s single, extremely narrow service staircase.

It was only after nightfall that the firefighters found a way to get the fire under control. They cut into the high-pressure pipe that ran through the entire tower and pumped water into it, creating a curtain of moisture that stopped the fire from spreading. The blaze, which had started around 460 meters (1,500 feet) up, was halted at 69 meters (226 feet). It was fully extinguished by the evening of August 28.

It took a year to restore the TV tower’s operations. The full reconstruction was completed in 2008, but the restaurant Seventh Heaven, located on the tower at a height of 330 meters (1,080 feet), didn’t reopen until 2016.