SEATTLE — An electrical fire at the Fisher Plaza building disrupted a server farm that provides service to multiple Web sites — including one that facilitates electronic transactions for tens of thousands of businesses and Microsoft's new search site.

The electrical fire also affected KOMO television, KOMO Newsradio, STAR 101.5 FM and KVI, which broadcast from the building.

And the fire impacted other Fisher stations as well, including interrupting some programming at KLEW-TV. CBS programming was not affected, but local and syndicated programs were affected, as well as local commercials.

KLEW has been carrying the signal of sister station KIMA in Yakima during non-CBS programming times.

The small electrical fire broke out around 11 p.m. Thursday in the basement of Fisher Plaza at an electrical vault — the section of the building where city power lines meet the building's transformers, said Seattle City Light spokesman Scott Thomsen.

Subsequent power failures affected operations for many Web sites and services.

Among those affected was Authorize.net Holdings Inc., based in Marlborough, Mass. The company provides credit card services for more than 238,000 merchants. Authorize.net's Web site was down Friday morning. However, the company said on its Twitter account that most of its services were back online. Calls to Authorize.net's spokesman were not immediately returned Friday morning.

The travel section of Microsoft Corp.'s new search engine — Bing — was also disrupted. In a Web post on Bing.com, Microsoft said Bing Travel servers were knocked out because of the electrical problem.

"This is isolated to Bing Travel only, and there has been no impact to any other aspects of Bing. We're hard at work to restore service following this unexpected event and appreciate your patience," the posting said.

How many Web sites experienced problems was not immediately clear.

Rob Dunlop, vice president of operations for Fisher Communications Inc., said one of the main clients who uses the data center is Internap Network Services Corp., a company that manages data centers and routes Internet traffic. Calls to Internap were no immediately returned Friday.

The electrical problem forced the evacuation of the building and disrupted the late night newscast, Dunlop said.

KOMO Newsradio and KOMO-TV were broadcasting Friday from remote locations. The radio staff was broadcasting from transmitter sites, and KOMO 4 News broadcasted its evening shows from a deck at Fisher Plaza.

Fisher Communications released a statement saying Fisher engineers were working with Seattle City Light and the company that manages the Fisher Plaza building to restore power and determine the cause of the electrical problem.

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The KLEW Web Staff contributed to this report.