OT­TO CAR­RING­TON

Se­nior Re­porter

ot­to.car­ring­ton@cnc3.co.tt

Stu­dents and staff at Mal­ick Sec­ondary School were evac­u­at­ed yes­ter­day af­ter a fire broke out on the com­pound.

The fire be­gan just af­ter mid­day.

Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly con­firmed the fire be­gan at one of the pre­fab­ri­cat­ed build­ings on the school com­pound.

She said, “So there is at this time no in­for­ma­tion about any child or staff mem­ber or any­body be­ing in dan­ger or any­thing at that point. We have just al­lowed the school to be dis­missed so that the fire ser­vices can get the fire out.”

Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed the school yes­ter­day as par­ents ar­rived to take stu­dents home.

As­sis­tant Chief Fire Of­fi­cer in charge of North­ern, Earl Samp­son ex­plained what hap­pened.

“Units from head­quar­ters and the San Juan Fire Sta­tion were dis­patched to the scene. Up­on ar­rival, of­fi­cers en­coun­tered Block F at the school.

“Pre­lim­i­nary in­for­ma­tion sug­gests the fire oc­curred in a pre­fab­ri­cat­ed build­ing hous­ing the serv­er room, li­brary, and con­fer­ence room. The area like­ly con­tained a sig­nif­i­cant load of com­put­ers, books, and oth­er ma­te­ri­als, which may have con­tributed to the fire’s in­ten­si­ty. The in­ves­ti­ga­tion is on­go­ing as ev­i­dence con­tin­ues to be gath­ered.”

He said the fire ser­vice would be col­lab­o­rat­ing with the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion to help de­ter­mine the cause of the blaze.

“The Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion has sys­tems in place to han­dle such in­ci­dents through its safe­ty man­age­ment team, which has been ac­ti­vat­ed. Cur­rent­ly, the Fire Ser­vice’s fire pre­ven­tion team has been mo­bilised and is on its way to the site. Ac­cord­ing to Fire Sta­tion Of­fi­cer Cum­mings, the team is wait­ing for the area to be deemed safe for en­try to in­ves­ti­gate the pos­si­ble cause and ori­gin of the fire. The fire pre­ven­tion team will con­duct an in-depth analy­sis to reach a con­clu­sion,” he ex­plained.

Samp­son said teach­ers, stu­dents, and pos­si­bly par­ents and oth­ers who may have wit­nessed the fire will be in­ter­viewed as of­fi­cials seek to de­ter­mine what hap­pened.