Story by: Darby McCarthy, MTN Reporter
9/14/20
A Mt. Juliet Elementary School classroom took fire damage after an air conditioning unit erupted into flames Monday morning around 7 AM.
The fire was small, contained to a single classroom. No injuries were sustained.
According to Mt. Juliet Fire Chief Jamie Luffman, “first units arriving on the scene did notice that the sprinkler system had engaged on the inside and there were staff members on the outside mitigating the flames with fire extinguishers. At that time, the crew of the Squad 103 took over fire suppression efforts. The fire was extinguished, [the] crew made entry… The fire originated from a PTAC unit just under the window for the classroom.”
There had been teachers inside having a faculty meeting at the time of the incident, but they were quickly evacuated.
“Any flames that were inside of the classroom were held in check by the activation of the sprinkler system, and then flames on the exterior [of] the unit were initially mitigated by on-scene personnel with fire extinguishers… then finalized with members of the fire department and a cold hose line,” said Luffman.
“There was water that seeped out of the classroom, out the doors and down the hallway to the classrooms, but crew members from the Fire Department have worked to remove that,” Luffman continued.
Wilson County Board of Education maintenance teams arrived on the scene, as well as special cleanup crews, before people were allowed back into the building.
This is not the first instance of a classroom fire at Mt. Juliet Elementary due to a faulty A/C unit, as seen in the following Facebook post from Wilson County Schools: https://www.facebook.com/WilsonK12Tn/posts/1303996359655862
The other instance of a fire, also contained to one classroom, caused damage at the same school in March of 2017. In both cases, there were no casualties and the first responders were able to prevent the fire from raging further.
“We’ve done atmospheric testing and all is well,” Luffman stated about this most recent occurrence.
All classes were able to resume normal lesson plans following emergency response.
Wilson County Board of Education maintenance teams and special cleanup crews were dispatched, and Mt. Juliet Elementary students and staff have been told they can expect to return to a normal day tomorrow.
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