School evacuated as fire destroys buildings
Around 200 pupils at school in south Wales had to be evacuated when a blaze broke out on 19th June.
The fire started in an area which housed the ICT suite at Betws Primary School, near Bridgend, at around 2.30pm.
One section of the school was destroyed but the nursery, infants and Flying Start buildings were not damaged.
Police advised local residents to remain indoors, keeping windows shut due to the huge amount of thick black smoke coming from the fire.
A spokesman for Bridgend council said: “This has been an upsetting incident for all pupils, and staff and council officers are arranging support for those children who need it. The council is grateful for the prompt response of school staff and the emergency services. Council officers are on the scene and will be working with the police and fire service to find the cause of the blaze and secure the area.”
More than 1300 schools each year suffers a fire large enough to be attended by the local fire services and 56% of these were classed as non-accidental. The average cost of school fires was £58 million per year between 2000 and 2004. This means that the odds of a school experiencing a fire are 1 in 20! This does not account for the fires that are not reported or put out by members of staff.
Most of these fires are small and do not spread from the source of the fire, but the unpredictability of fire means this may not be the case. As the large number of fires are not accidental, it is important that you look at arson reduction measures.
The fire Safety in Educational Premises course is designed with the above statistics in mind, along with the expertise of our trainers, all of whom have no less than 10 years operational fire fighting experience in a UK fire service, involving many visits to educational premises.
For further information, call us now on 0845 0553 999 or contact us
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