Fans and furniture are seen in the hallway of the Division 7 courtroom at the Douglas County Judicial and Law Enforcement Center on Jan. 24, 2024, after a small fire damaged a jury room the night before.

A string of worse and worse disruptions at Douglas County’s court building — first flooding, then a fire, and now a stench of smoke and chemicals in the air — has now forced some employees to relocate and even postponed some court hearings.

The air quality problem resulted from Tuesday’s fire in a jury room at the Judicial and Law Enforcement Center and the air fresheners and cleaning materials used to combat the burnt smell. But the cascade of problems began on Jan. 15, when a water pipe burst during a stretch of freezing temperatures, flooding the jury room and requiring the Division 7 courtroom and adjacent offices to be closed.

Fans were set up to dry out the room, and the fire was caused when one of the fans malfunctioned overnight on Tuesday. The fire was contained by the building’s sprinkler system, but that also reintroduced water to some of the areas that had previously been flooded.

“Fire damage was limited to the jury deliberation room in the Division 7 courtroom of District Court and associated restrooms,” Douglas County spokeswoman Karrey Britt told the Journal-World. “Additional flooding was experienced in rooms surrounding the Division 7 court suite, only in the basement, which was attributable to the fire suppression that came on and extinguished the fire.”

“The full extent of the damage has yet to be determined,” Britt said.

Together, these problems have been causing all kinds of headaches for the county’s court system. The burst pipe had already disrupted Division 7, overseen by Judge Carl Folsom III, and the Pro Tem Division, overseen by Judge Blake Glover, while remediation teams worked to clean up. And on Wednesday and Thursday, several hearings were either held remotely or postponed; some court staff members were wearing face masks, and one staffer could be seen plugging her nose while walking around the building.

Britt said that each judge “is making decisions about their cases.” And Chief Judge James McCabria said people should expect to be able to attend hearings and conduct business with the courts as usual, but that “we may have to ask for an extra measure of patience on any given case or situation.”

It’s not just courtrooms themselves that are having problems. After the fire, the Douglas County District Attorney’s Office announced that it would be closing its physical office at the Judicial and Law Enforcement Center to the public through at least Friday, but that staff would continue to be present for court hearings that took place in person. The office can still be reached by phone or email, and Britt told the Journal-World there was no physical damage to the offices that the DA’s Office uses.

“The health and safety of our team are paramount,” District Attorney Suzanne Valdez said in the office’s news release. “We do not know how long the repairs will take, but, due to our plan for continuity of operations, we are able to provide our full array services to our community.”

Other offices have moved out of the building for a while. A staffer with the District Court Clerk’s Office said that office and the Court Trustee’s Office had both temporarily relocated to the Douglas County Courthouse, 1100 Massachusetts St., next door to the Judicial and Law Enforcement Center for the next week.