Sprint customers briefly affected by fire at Omaha facility

A fire at a Sprint facility in Omaha briefly affected the ability of the company's Twin Cities metro-area cellphone customers to call 911, Minneapolis city officials said Tuesday afternoon.

Sprint customers can now call 911 for emergency help, a subsequent news release said.

"Sprint is in the process of restoring power to the facility where the fire took place. Until that work is completed, any 911 calls made on Sprint phones will be automatically transferred to the emergency call center's seven-digit phone number. That means all Sprint customers in Minneapolis can now call 911 to get emergency help," the news release said.

According to the Lincoln Journal Star, the fire was reported before 5 a.m. Tuesday in the basement of a building in the city's downtown that houses wirelines for Sprint. One person was critically injured in the fire, the newspaper reported.