At 8:27 p.m. on 9 February 2009, on the last day of the festivities marking Chinese New Year, the entire building caught fire due to a nearby unsanctioned fireworks display; it was put out six hours later.

The engineering firm for the building was Arup, East Asia,[7] who designed and built the TVCC after an extensive internal study of the collapse of the World Trade Center on 11 September 2001.

[10][11] CCTV had ignored three consecutive police interventions and warnings and had four television cameras trained on the multi-million yuan fireworks, which consisted of nearly 700 high explosive pyrotechnic devices, reports said.

[14] Xinhua News Agency reported, and the municipal public security bureau confirmed, that Beijing police detained an official of CCTV.

Xu Wei (徐威), in charge of the CCTV construction site, was taken to a police station in eastern Beijing's central business district, suspected of being the organiser of the fireworks display.

The investigation team observed that the fire damaged mainly the outer walls with majority of the interior and the structural integrity of the building largely unaffected.

[21] According to Caijing, the actual cost of the fireworks display was CNY350,000; however, CCTV was billed 1 million for it by a legal entity controlled by Xu Wei, the construction manager.

[23] In late February, AFP cited an official in Beijing Number Two Intermediate Court who confirmed 23 people have been charged in the incident.

[24] A memo from government officials, which was posted on the Internet, made clear that authorities were eager to downplay the blaze, "a colossal embarrassment that many people believe augurs poorly for the new year", according to The New York Times.

[25] Li Xiguang, journalism professor at Beijing's Tsinghua University said the decision not to show coverage was "stupid" and damaged the credibility of CCTV.

[26] Despite the lack of images on the state media, photographs and videotapes of the fire, taken with cameras and cellphones, swiftly found their way to blogs and forums including major portals such as Sina, Sohu, and Youku.

It noted there was "a storm" of criticism that the state broadcaster which created one of the year's biggest news stories failed to report the event promptly, or honestly.