Over the past two years there has been a spate of school fires, a phenomenon which might tempt conspiracy theorists to the view that something sinister is afoot. Five occurred in Georgetown, a city which, as its inhabitants well know, has always been prone to fire, and two outside it. Many of the capital’s schools are older timber structures, which once they catch alight inevitably burn down very quickly, although it must be said that one or two of the buildings involved were of more recent vintage.
The first thing to be remarked about them is that they are all secondary schools, although whether there is any significance in that fact remains to be seen. The most recent case last week involved Christ Church which could not be saved, although that destruction had been preceded a few days earlier by an earlier small fire in a Science laboratory there. In July last year St George’s High was razed to the ground, but there was far less serious damage following a fire in the laboratory of Charlestown Secondary in June of the same year, as well as in the case of the Christianburg-Wismar Secondary in February. In June 2021 a section of the North Ruimveldt Multilateral was destroyed in a blaze and in September of that year part of the North-West Secondary School in Mabaruma was completely gutted.
There are two issues to be considered: the first relates to causes and the second to preventive measures.
Where the first of these is concerned it should be a matter of unease for the Ministry of Education that the causes are not known in some cases, and that even where they have been declared, it is sometimes not clear how the conclusion was arrived at by the Guyana Fire Service. In two instances chemicals in a Science laboratory were involved, and in the case of Charlestown Secondary it apparently came about as a consequence of an experiment where chemicals were mixed. While it was announced that samples had been taken to the forensic lab for testing, nothing further has been revealed. Safety in school Science labs is something which should be of great concern to the Ministry which would need to know the details of what happened and whether any irresponsibility on the part of staff or assistants was involved, or whether students had access to the room after the end of the school day.
The first small fire in the lab in Christ Church would be of particular interest, since the question would have to be asked whether it was connected to what happened nine days later. In this instance it was reported that combustion had been caused as a result of a chemical reaction, so was this evidence of carelessness in the storage of chemicals, or was some experiment being undertaken (the time was around 4.30 in the afternoon), or was this a case of mischievous students or even malicious ones going beyond the limits of an experiment? Was anybody at all in the lab at the time, and if no one was supposed to be there, was it securely locked?
There is also a similar question potentially hanging over the North Ruimveldt Multilateral case since that fire consumed a building which also housed Science laboratories as well as those for Information Technology. The Home Economics Department could also be found in the same section along with a number of classrooms. To date there has been no suggestion about what might have caused the blaze.
The one case which is relatively clear is that of St George’s, where the inferno appears to have had its origin in an electrical fault. Fire Prevention Officer Sheldon Sauns told this newspaper that an old duplex receptacle had overheated and started the blaze. He said a teacher had related to him that the receptacle, where two devices could be plugged in, had not been working for some time. It still had continuous current, however, and this had caused the overheating which had melted the insulation. Whether GPL had inspected the school at any time prior to the fire is not clear, but the Ministry needs to ensure that staff in schools are in any case instructed to make a report if any outlets are not functioning. It is a matter of sensitising everyone who works in an educational institution to the potential dangers. This is quite apart from the need for the electricity company to maintain a roster of schools to inspect on a regular basis.
Then there is the matter of arson, which the Guyana Fire Service has maintained applied to both Mabaruma and the second fire in Christ Church. Where the North-West Secondary is concerned, a security guard attached to the school reported hearing three explosions and seeing smoke and fire emanating from the second floor on the eastern side in the direction of the Head Teacher’s office. The GFS has never explained the source of the explosions, or how they thought the fire started, neither have they said what was housed on the second floor. Were the explosions from gas cylinders in the Home Economics Department, for example, or were there Science labs in that annexe too, or did something else account for the blasts? The Fire Service really needs to give more details so the public does not come to the conclusion that in the absence of any other obvious cause, then the GFS decides there is an implication of arson.
Even in the matter of the conflagration which levelled Christ Church, questions from the public’s point of view still remain. In a press release the Fire Service said that taking into consideration the time of day when both fires there occurred (16.29 hrs and 17.22 hrs) “coupled with the fact that the second fire had several points of origin … it is the determination of the Guyana Fire Service that the fire was maliciously set by a person or persons unknown.” It went on to say that investigators were able to determine the cause after having ruled out that it was electrical in origin or the result of another chemical reaction. What does not appear to be known, or at least was not disclosed, was how the fires were set, since if there were several points of origin it should be established what was used to start them. Since the matter has now been handed over to the police, it is important that they are given this kind of information if progress in the inquiry is to be made.
The Christianburg-Wismar School is in the same category as North Ruimveldt Multilateral in so far as no one knows the cause of its fire. The precise location is known, since it started in a bookcase in a classroom. Was someone surreptitiously smoking a cigarette and did not extinguish the end properly on the bookcase, or is this another case of something more deliberate and malicious? Nothing has been said by the GFS about this case, although one might have thought it was not beyond their powers of investigation since an alert and quick-thinking handyman noticed the smoke and threw the bookcase out of the window, while the Fire Service arrived soon after.
Some time ago, Minister Robeson Benn said the GFS needed to “up its game.” No doubt, but he has to do his part too. Since there is money in the Budget for the service this year, it is about time he dispatched at least one, but preferably more than one officer to the US or some other appropriate country to study fire investigation. That is a speciality which nowadays is highly scientific and technical, and requires among other things, a good grasp of chemistry.
Even if of all the schools named, prima facie only Christ Church falls in the arson category, and that is by no means certain, then we need to know who committed the act. If more than one school is affected by this blight, then we need to know if we have a serial arsonist (or arsonists) on our hands. It is possible that foreign investigators could have established whether North Ruimveldt was an arson case, for example, and would have been able to discover whether accelerants were used in any of the cases. In any event, there are enough fires in this country to justify the training of specialists in the field. Just knowing how to hold a water hose and where to direct water is not good enough in this day and age.
As for prevention, in August last year it was reported that 32 security officers attached to the Ministry of Education underwent training in fire safety. How many of these were attached to schools is unknown, but even if they all were, they represent a drop in the ocean given the number of schools in Guyana. In any case, traditionally security in many schools, particularly those outside the capital has been notoriously defective, and if schools are not secure, then people with malevolent intentions can access them. The Ministry should not try to get security on the cheap.
Ideally all schools should have fire extinguishers which would be accessible to staff alone, as well as sprinkler systems. Some may have the former, but not the latter. Had there been sprinklers in some of these institutions, the damage may not have been so great. One hopes that all the newly rebuilt schools will be provided with them. Furthermore, even though fortunately no injuries resulted from these fires, nevertheless all schools should conduct fire drills; most of them probably do not do so currently. The Fire Service says it conducts inspections on a regular basis, and one would expect that the interval between these would not be an extended one.
Lastly, the Ministry should reinforce the protocols governing the storage and use of chemicals in school labs, and ensure that they are secure at all times.
