Fire at MVTHS

Another exciting day at MVTHS. There is really never a dull moment. It all happened during 5th block, which is right after lunch. I was giving a test to my Earth Science students, when all of a sudden the fire alarm rang. “Darn,” I thought. Somebody has pulled the alarm, and now my students will have trouble getting finished with this test. “Let’s go people, down the stairs, across the street…stay as a group.” As we were exciting, I could tell from the look on Mr. Well’s face that was no ordinary drill. “Move it, move it” shouted Mr. Wells. As I got down to the bottom level, I could see smoke billowing through the downstairs hallway. I could then see students visually upset and shaken. I ordered my students to gather, made sure they were out of the street, and began to take attendance. I still do not have a good handle on who is who (shame on me), so I got another student to quickly help me take roll. After watching administrators running with fire extinguishers, the fire department trucks pulled up. These guys were amazing! They really took control of the situation. Unfortunately, I was unable to watch much, because we had to move all of G-building over to the gym. Imagine trying to keep 350 teenagers under control after this excitement. All in all they were pretty good.

So how did the fire start? I appears that someone lit fire to a toilet paper roll. What a mess! The smoke damage is unbelievable. Looks like we will be off school for at least one day.

The image above is of the floor in the bathroom. I was trying to sneak a picture when I discovered that this was not a good time to do this--several administrators were right around the corner looking at the bad part. Maybe I can get a better picture later.