By paNOW Staff

Fire at Meath Park school sends students home early

Oct 20, 2016 | 12:47 PM

A fire broke out at Meath Park School this morning, resulting in an evacuation.

By early afternoon thick black smoke was billowing through the roof from the rear portion of the school, which is home to roughly 270 K-12 students. Multiple fire crews were on hand working to control the blaze.

Volunteer firefighters from Meath Park, Garden River, Candle Lake, Lakeland District and Paddockwood were on the scene, as were members of the RCMP closed the road to civilian traffic.

Alan Nunn, co-chair superintendent of schools with the Saskatchewan Rivers School Division confirmed the fire had been extinguished at roughly 2:30 p.m.

Nunn said the fire originated in a kitchen, but currently there is no further information on how the fire may have started.

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“At approximately 10:50 this morning during our break, the fire alarm went off,” Principal Tom Hazzard told PaNOW. Hazzard said the school was entirely evacuated of all students and staff within three minutes of the initial alarm, and all students were uninjured and accounted for.

Hazzard credited the successful evacuation to regular fire drills and good emergency planning, and said the school had already reached out to every student’s emergency contacts and made arrangements to get them home safely.

“The bus drivers did a really good job contacting parents,” Hazzard said. “Just really good communication.”

“Some kids were in the gym getting changed and they saw some smoke coming in,” Riley Gobeil, a Meath Park student, said. “They went over to the canteen and they opened the door and saw a pile of smoke.”

“Thankfully,” he said, “the majority of the kids were out of the school already for recess.”

Taylor.macpherson@jpbg.ca

@TMacPhersonNews