Events

November 27th, 2017

10:30 AM

Acappella is practicing for their concert in the auditorium. The Hearts of Gold assembly just finished, and everyone was getting back into the rhythm of school, after a long break. While practicing, many people began commenting on the smell of smoke. Burnt popcorn, toast, melted plastic. For almost 20 minutes, we sat there wondering what this strange smell was.

10:43 AM

At the raise of the choir director’s hands, an ear shattering, piercing sound of the fire alarms go off. We quickly shuffle outside, some people risking the teacher’s wrath to go back for their bags. As we go out the door, someone points back to the stage. We all assumed it was only a drill, and then we see the smoke filling up the ceiling above the stage. Everything seemed to click, and we continued to shuffle outside, into the cold.

10:53 AM

The squeal of the fire trucks sirens pull into the parking lot. The fire fighters pile out, and head into the auditorium. Rumors begin circulating, especially throughout the choir classes. The student body realizes that this isn’t just some drill. The temperature drops. The alarms in the school continue to scream. Officer Archie arrives on the scene. One of the rumors includes one girl claiming that she purposely started the fire.

11:15 AM (time unconfirmed)

The students on the east side of the school grounds get the okay to begin heading back inside, but are forced back out after they determined it still was not safe. Students made it all the way to the commons being told to go back out.

11:30 AM

They finally release students to head back inside, after the wind has picked up, and the temperature has dropped even more. The story has finally settled on a curtain catching fire, but the story is still unconfirmed. They tell students to go to their 3rd period. Some students try to sneak into the auditorium to look at the damage. Only a simple pile of curtain can be seen before the onslaught of chastisement comes. School goes back to normal, but the students still have the fire on the brain.

The official story:

While setting up for the choir concert, or while the students were entering the auditorium by stage, a curtain was pushed towards a light, possibly getting wrapped around the light. As the curtain sat there, the light slowly heated it up, and began melting it, causing a lot of smoke. The curtains have a fire retardant on them, so they couldn’t catch on fire. They just melted like plastic, creating a lot of smoke. There is said to have been a few flames as the fire proof stuff melted away, leaving a small portion of curtain to burn, but that was not confirmed. The main reason for the fire department coming, was to confirm that it was still safe, and to provide fans to push the smoke out. Many fans were going to help clear that out so they could reset the alarm. This occurrence is not going to affect the choir concert that is scheduled for the next day, as well as the auditions for the school play. According the the school principal, Mr. Birch, it will cost the school close to $10,000 to replace just the one curtain. They are planning on talking to the teachers that use the auditorium, to make sure that this will not happen again. These teachers will most likely talking to their students about being safe on the stage as well. The school is only concerned about the students safety, and they see this situation as a success, because nobody got hurt.