An electrical fire broke out at the Crefeld School’s 1960s-era arts and physical education building on Wednesday, prompting three fire trucks to respond.
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An electrical fire broke out at the Crefeld School’s 1960s-era arts and physical education building on Wednesday, prompting three fire trucks to respond to an incident that, fortunately, did not turn out to be a major disaster, according to head of school George Zeleznik.
“The first and most important thing to know is that it was the first day of spring break, so none of our students were on campus,” said Zeleznik. “It was also an in-service day, so we had about 15 faculty and staff here – so we were able to catch it before it got out of hand.”
According to Zeleznik, the lights began flickering at about 9:40 a.m., which prompted staff to call PECO.
“Then we immediately turned off the power and gas to the whole building,” Zeleznik said.
Minutes later, the first alarms went off – triggering an automatic response by the fire department.
According to Zeleznik, fire investigators told him that the electrical line running between the street and the gym arts building failed “somewhere underground,” sparking a fire in the crawl space between the gym’s equipment closet and the exterior wall of the building.
“It happened between two cement walls, so there was never a time when the flames actually came into contact with any wood,” Zeleznik said.
