Crowds of students outside MGCI during the false fire alarm incident. Photo: Sabrina Bertsch
On Wednesday, two false fire alarms were set off at MGCI. After the second fire alarm, an announcement was made ordering all students off the premises before the school day had ended.
As they left for home, students were left unaware of what had caused the alarms and the evacuations.
On Thursday, Principal Goldenberg made the following announcement to the school, explaining the events.
The following italicized text is a transcription of Principal Goldenberg’s explanation.
Yesterday we had two fire alarms. The first was a problem that automatically set off a smoke detector. The school board sent in an engineer to check and clean all our smoke detectors.
Unfortunately, after that a group of students decided to use one of our fire extinguishers. I’m sure that they didn’t understand the full impact of that, but the fluids and powder from the extinguisher created a smoke-like substance that set off another alarm.
A fire truck approaches MGCI for one of two false alarms in the same day. Photo: Mahan Nekoui
A quantity of substance spread through the third floor, and with the advice of the fire department we sent everyone home with the concern that the powder in the air could cause breathing problems for those of you with asthma and other breathing issues if you remained in the area for a prolonged period of time. The fire department left and reported the situation to the police, which came to the school to investigate.
The students responsible for this fire extinguisher situation have been suspended and are being arrested and charged by the police for mischief under $5000. The costs to the school we have estimated at $800 as only one fire truck was dispatched. Because we knew what the situation was and the school board was able to notify the fire department, they only dispatched one truck.
The students will be ordered by the courts to pay for this amount.
