By Joshua Christensen
A paper banner caught on fire above the lockers outside the 800 hallway around 2:10 pm on Thursday, Sept. 14. A faculty member pulled the fire alarm, and administration evacuated the building. No one was hurt, and the school did not sustain any structural damage.
“I was walking out of class in the 800 hallway, and as I turned the corner there was a lot of pointing and yelling, and I looked, and there was wall of fire. I didn’t really know what to do except just to get out of there as fast as I could,” Kayla Abrams, junior, said.
Once notified, teachers acted quickly to combat the fire, tearing down strips of the poster to prevent it from spreading and eventually they blasted the area with a fire extinguisher. The fire and fire extinguisher sent plumes of acrid smoke into the sky.
“I couldn’t even see it [the fire]. I could smell it though, and I thought, ok there’s definitely a fire. So I came back in here, and I called the front desk … they pulled the alarm … It [The procedure] is about getting off campus, and everybody needs to know that even if you don’t have a teacher to follow off campus, you’re still supposed to get to the parking lot,” Mr. Poleski, AP Human Geography teacher, said.
Teachers and faculty adapted to the situation of the fire immediately, ushering students out of the 800 hallway and building.
“I don’t know who it was, but a kid lit the stuco poster on fire and just a huge crowd of people started rushing towards the scene and pulled out their phones to record it. It was just crazy,” Kahiau Hennessy, junior ,said.
The CCSD police are still investigating the incident and those responsible.
