Lent Elementary School Burns

[CATCH AND EAT]

My sister is a teacher at Lent School. Last night she watched her classroom burn as well as all the records she had maintained for her reading challenged kids. :depressed: The schools offices also burned and now my sister may be out of work.

Appears some bone head arsonist set the place a fire Now lots of teachers are out of work and children will be most likely bussed to other schools. :depressed:

[Firedog]

C and E, the majority of the damage is contained to one area of the building. With some smoke clean up and other clean up the rest of the building will be useable. Two classroom's with heavy damage and after that it is just smoke damage. Sorry to hear about your sisters classroom. Was her's the Head start room in the back corner? Unless the office was right beside that back classromm they are fine.

[ 02-18-2003, 08:45 AM: Message edited by: firedog ]

[CATCH AND EAT]

Firedog, yes, hers was the headstart room. I believe it's the one that a hole was cut into the roof. She is pretty upset over the whole thing. As far as the offices go I must not have heard her correctly. :blush:

Are you at liberty to say whether it was arson or not? Pretty sad situation for a school that has zero money for repairs.

If you were on scene I want to personally thank you for your efforts. [img]graemlins/applause.gif[/img] You guys are awesome and appreciated.

[Firedog]

C asnd E, first off no thanks required. We are glad to be able to help. There were no holes cut over the head start room. But the roof is in pretty bad shape there real soft almost burned through. We trench cut the roof to the east and north of the fire origin to cut it off from running into the wing that goes to the north. We also made two holes in the roof of the auditorium. When we got to the roof we had fire coming out of the vents right above the headstart room.

I am not at liberty to say what the cause was yet, they should annonce it in a day or two. I can say it loooked suspicious.

[ 02-18-2003, 10:24 AM: Message edited by: firedog ]

[CATCH AND EAT]

Firedog. To bad. THANK YOU! :grin: I realize it is a job you have choosen to do and it is what you get paid to do. To often we forget to thank those for the services they provide no matter what they choose to do in life. So you are gonna have to accept the thanks anyways. :tongue:

Thanks for the description of the damages. I hope that they can put this thing back together again so the kids can get back at the books. This is a very poor school without much money for this kind of stuff. I hope they catch the idiot that set this fire. Problem is he most likely will only get a ticket these days.

I'll be looking for an announcement in the comming days. BTW Is Rich Stenhouse investigating this this one? Just curious. Rich is a friend of mine and a heck of a great guy.

[Firedog]

C and E, Well I say thank you for the recognition. Like I said not needed but apreciated. :smile:

Rich is the Chief Investigator and I am sure he will be involved in this one. I didn't see him last night but like I said I spent most of my time on the roof cutting holes :smile:

[ 02-18-2003, 11:54 AM: Message edited by: firedog ]

[Bait O' Eggs]

We trench cut the roof to the east and north of the fire origin to cut it off from running into the wing that goes to the north.

<font size="2" face="verdana,arial,helv">Without giving away fireman trade secrets how do you trench cut a roof? :whazzup: I would assume a chainsaw cutting a couple parallel cuts in the roof opeing up a hole to pump some water, hoping you dont cut the supports you are standing on. I would think an axe would be slower than the rate of fire spread.

[The Fishing Geek]

Originally posted by Bait O' Eggs:
</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="verdana,arial,helv">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="verdana,arial,helv"> We trench cut the roof to the east and north of the fire origin to cut it off from running into the wing that goes to the north.

<font size="2" face="verdana,arial,helv">Without giving away fireman trade secrets how do you trench cut a roof? :whazzup: I would assume a chainsaw cutting a couple parallel cuts in the roof opeing up a hole to pump some water, hoping you dont cut the supports you are standing on. I would think an axe would be slower than the rate of fire spread. </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="verdana,arial,helv">Roy needs to know in case he flames out another smoker. :grin:

[Bait O' Eggs]

With those ears you hear everything dont you?

[WaterDog]

Roy, you looking to maybe have a few tricks up your sleeve for the next time you get that smoker going?

Dang geek!!! you beat me to it!! [img]graemlins/applause.gif[/img]

[Firedog]

Roy, next time you fire up the smoker let me know and I will come over and show you :smile:

OK, a trench cut is like you thought it is a cut 3'-4' wide and the width of an area. In this case from wall to wall. We use it to cut off fire spread. Fire will generally burn to that point and wont go past it because it is ventilated. Kind of like a fire line in a wild land fire. As long as the inside crews are getting water to it we can hold it in check this way. We dont put water in from the outside unless all the crews are out and we are going to a defesive mode. If you put water in from outside while someone is inside you will burn them either with steam pushing in over them or by pushing actual fire into them.

The cut we made last night cut off an entire wing of the school keeping the fire out of that side. We do use Chainsaws and also Circular saws. With a chainsaw you can actully feel the rafters and roll the saw up over them. Circ saw is a little tougher, but like you mentioned you really dont want to cut through the rafters that are holding up the roof you are standing on. Last night it ended up so smoky on the roof that our chainsaw wouldnt run.(when we went to tear out the roofing we were using axes and you couldnt see the roof when you were on your kness it was that smoky)This happens and we were able to get the circular saw to keep running and finish the cuts then you go to work with axes to get the material out of the hole.

The reason we cut holes in roofs are like mentioned above to control fire spread. The biggest reason we cut holes though is to release the heat and smoke that is inside so the crews inside can make it to the seat of the fire. A typical hole in a house fire would be 4'X4' and sometimes larger depending on the size of area we are ventilating.

Hope that helped explain some of this :smile:

[ 02-18-2003, 02:33 PM: Message edited by: firedog ]

[CATCH AND EAT]

Thanks for the info Firedog. It was appreciated.

Now as for BOE and smoked fish. Not likely to happen again given his catch ratio unless he buys it up at Cascade Locks. :grin: Then you might want to call in Firedog to oversee the smoking process with hose in hand.

Just got an e-mail from my mom. She said last night was very tough on my sister. All she could say was "2 years of work gone." "She put her heart and sould into her job and loves what whe does". Folks, if you ever want to meet a consistent, dedicated, respected and loved school teacher then you need to meet my sister Rhonda Stecker. Right now we don't know if she will have a job for the rest of the school year. Boy, tough times keep rollin. :depressed:

[ 02-18-2003, 02:51 PM: Message edited by: CATCH AND EAT ]

[The Fishing Geek]

It's official: arson.

[CATCH AND EAT]

Thanks Geek. Hope they catch the idiot that did this. What a low life.

[Firedog]

We were pretty sure it was arson last night. The clues were fairly obvious. Just had to wait till the investigators made the official anouncement. The dog came in and I am sure made a quick confirmation of flammable liquids. There was alot of very obvious evidence last night so they should have a good start on finding this guy. The suspect was actually seen by the first in engine last night so there should be a decent description of him also. Sounds like ther had been some problems at that school with break ins and vandals for a little bit now. Our investigators are excellent and they catch a very high percentag of arsonist's in the city of Portland. So this guy has that going against him.

[ 02-18-2003, 11:18 PM: Message edited by: firedog ]

[The Fishing Geek]

Bummer of a connection you two share now. :depressed:

[Smily]

This is a terrible shame for someone to do. I hope they ____ the person.

I have spent 3 or 4 yrs in that auditorium on Sundays as that is where our church was meeting at. We finally moved into another building last Sept. I do have lots of memorys in that school as it was more than just a school for some of us.

:smile: Smily :smile:

[Firedog]

Looks like a lot of the kids will be back in school tomorrow. That is great news and the Schools insurance will cover all the damages.

Lent's students to Return Tomorrow