On October 8, Jonathan Alder High School experienced a small fire in a light fixture that was the result of a blown transformer. Students and staff were quickly evacuated from the building, and thankfully, there were no injuries. All the details surrounding what happened were not very clear at the time to students, so “The Pioneer Press” decided to talk to the administration to get the inside scoop.

    Mark Fenik, the assistant principal, and principal Michael Aurin were in the seventh period lunch when custodian Mark Syx came and told them a transformer had blown as the custodians were replacing the bulbs on the exterior lights; however, before they could get to it, the transformer began sparking and creating smoke.

    Once the principals heard of the news, they quickly made the decision to evacuate the building because “the safety of the staff and students is our main priority,” according to Aurin. Fenik took the next step and went into the lunchroom to tell the students eating lunch to begin evacuating, meanwhile, Aurin pulled the fire alarm and proceeded to call 911. “The students did really well evacuating the building quickly, and the fire department responded within about 8 minutes. So the entire incident only lasted about 20 minutes,” said Aurin.

    “All in all there was no negative issues to the incident and it was good practice in case of a larger fire or dangerous situation at lunch. The only change we are working on is numbering the exterior doors so that if the fire department had to be called again we could easily point them to the correct door,” explained Aurin.