EVERETT — As firefighters doused still-smoking rubble Wednesday afternoon, a small collection of somber students peered at the blackened, twisted wreckage that had been their classroom building at the Sno-Isle Tech Skills Center.
They shook their heads.
“It’s like something that happens in the movies, not something that happens in real life,” said Sarah Henn, a senior who studied computer servers and networking in the devastated building. Henn splits her school day between Sno-Isle and Granite Falls High School. “It is depressing.”
The inferno that engulfed a campus building Tuesday has closed the entire campus at least through today.
Fire marshals said Wednesday that, as suspected, the fire was sparked accidentally by construction workers involved in a nearly $9 million remodel. The workers were cutting away square steel beams that support exterior awnings, said Glen Martinsen, fire marshal for the Everett Fire Department.
“Whether it was sparks (from the steel cutters) or if the metal just got hot enough to ignite the wood it was touching, we don’t know,” Martinsen said.
Flames were so intense that all on-duty and off-duty personnel in the Everett Fire Department were called to the school, Martinsen said. The department rarely does that, he said. Many neighboring fire departments also responded.
The fire quickly spread into the building’s attic and beyond. As wind gusts up to 40 mph fanned the flames, firefighters fell into defensive positions to protect the rest of the campus.
Firefighters from the Paine Field and Boeing fire departments weren’t called to help. Everett officials said they could have asked those departments for aid but felt they weren’t needed at the time. “We had the appropriate amount of equipment; we had the appropriate amount of personnel,” said Kate Reardon, Everett spokeswoman.
It took firefighters six minutes to arrive on scene, Reardon said. The call came in at 3:09 p.m., and the first two engines and an aid car arrived at 3:15.
The fire is likely among the most destructive fires in Everett in the past few years, although no official damage estimate has been released.
The campus’s eight buildings are worth a total of $10 million, according to the Snohomish County Assessor. Included in that count are two small portables.
Insurance adjustors are also adding up the value of the building’s contents and the now-destroyed remodel, which began three weeks ago.
Classes could reopen soon after substitute classrooms and equipment are ready, said Steve Burch, the center’s executive director. That could take a few days, he said.
Burch said students who have signed up for Sno-Isle for next fall should not worry.
“We’ll tell them, ‘Hang tight.’ We will be able to serve them all,” he said.
Sno-Isle offers 21 different technical programs for students from 14 different school districts throughout Snohomish County. More than 830 students divide their time between Sno-Isle and their home high schools.
Six of the school’s programs were housed in the destroyed building, including culinary arts, Web programming, dental assisting, medical assisting, nurse assisting, and computer services and networking. The building also housed the school’s administrative offices and the popular student-operated Le Bistro restaurant.
Becky Pechman, who has taught culinary arts at the school for 11 years, lost more than 100 cookbooks as well as her knives and other equipment in the fire. Her losses weren’t as upsetting as those of the students at Le Bistro, she said.
The restaurant serves lunch four days a week and caters large-scale events. On Friday, the students were scheduled to prepare dinner for 100 people.
“This is their life,” said Pechman, who is known as Chef Becky to her 41 students. “This is their passion.”
Reporter Katya Yefimova contributed to this report.
Reporter Chris Fyall: 425-339-3447, cfyall@heraldnet.com.
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