An early morning fire at Compton Orthodontics caused heavy damage and forced employees to scramble to inform patients and find a temporary place to continue working.

Thick clouds of acrid smoke wafted out of the roof of the dental office at 315 New Towne Drive this morning as members of the Bowling Green Fire Department tried to contain the blaze. The roof showed signs of caving as well.

Marlee Boenig, BGFD spokeswoman, said the fire department received a report of a fire alarm at 4:07 a.m. today.

“When we got here, there was smoke in the building and heavy fire in the attic,” Boenig said.

The fire itself was concentrated in the attic, with firefighters encountering light smoke in the first floor of Compton Orthodontics and heavier smoke on the second floor, Boenig said.

Firefighters used ladder trucks in an effort to fight the fire from outside.

“We had to pull our people out when the ceiling started to sag,” Boenig said. “That makes a difference in how we approach (the fire).”

Boenig said that city firefighters have been busy in the past several hours, also going out on a water rescue on Russellville Road.

Fire investigators had not yet had an opportunity this morning to go through the building to determine the cause of the fire, but the office manager for Compton Orthodontics said she believed lightning from a storm system that passed through the area overnight was responsible.

It would be the second such fire in the area in the past five days to have lightning as a suspected cause, after the Downing Museum at the Baker Arboretum suffered significant damage in a blaze Thursday. 

“We just want all of our patients to know that we will be in contact with them as soon as possible,” said Angie Unseld, office manager for the dental practice. “We will find an office to take care of them in.”

Compton’s bank offered its conference room for employees to get in touch with patients, and several doctors have reached out to Compton to offer temporary space to see patients, Unseld said.

Headed by Dr. Thomas Compton, Compton Orthodontics moved into its present location off Lovers Lane three years ago after operating for several years at an office on the U.S. 31-W By-Pass. In addition to Bowling Green, the practice also has offices in Russellville and Tompkinsville.

The practice serves an estimated 75 to 80 patients a day and has about 1,000 active patients, according to Unseld.

“We’ll have to figure out what to do next and just take it step by step,” Unseld said.

The overnight storms, marked by frequent lightning and heavy rain, caused several thousand people to lose power overnight.

About 8,300 Warren Rural Electric Cooperative Corporation customers were without power around 2:15 a.m. this morning, according to WRECC spokesman Rick Carroll. By 6:30 a.m., only 92 customers remained powerless.

“I’m sure everything’s been restored by now,” Carroll said.

Mark Iverson, general manager for Bowling Green Municipal Utilities, said a power line on Broadway Street was hit by lightning, causing a a substation at Fifth Avenue and High Street to lose power overnight, resulting in outages for about 1,500 customers.

Within 30 minutes of that outage, though, about two-thirds of affected customers had their power restored, and the remaining customers regained power about an hour later, Iverson said.