No one was hurt in a fire at the Dzantik’i Heeni campus in Juneau on Tuesday. But it left students huddled outside for hours.
Juneau School District Director of Operations Kristy Germain said the fire started in a high school science class.
“Our systems worked as they should,” she said. “The sprinklers worked to put out the fire, and we had no injuries.”
The evacuation left many students in the building’s three separate schools – Juneau Community Charter School, Montessori Borealis and Yaaḵoosgé Daakahídi High School – outside without jackets or a lunch. Montessori Borealis sixth grader Grace Blair said she thought it was a fire drill at first.
“The alarm never stopped going off, so we were outside and our teacher had us just standing there for a while and then everyone was evacuated and we had to stay out for two hours in the cold.”
The district sent an email to families saying potential exposed wiring made the building unsafe for students to reenter. Five school buses arrived after the fire to move students to Dimond Park Field House near Thunder Mountain Middle School where families could pick up students.
Staff wheeled in white paper sacks with food for students about two hours after their normal lunchtime.
After being picked up, Blair had one thought.
“I want to be warm,” she said.
Chava Levy, another sixth grader, shared a similar sentiment.
“It was very cold,” she said.
While Blair said the whole ordeal wasn’t too bad, there were still some intense moments. She said one of the scariest moments was seeing one of the Montessori classrooms leaving in a hurry.
“They were running and a whole bunch of kids were screaming because they had heard something,” she said.
The district reported Tuesday afternoon class will resume at Dzantik’i Heeni beginning tomorrow.
This story has been updated.
Correction: The original version of this story misstated which classroom ran out of the building on Tuesday.
