A fire in the basement of the Bannow North Science Center last Thursday which knocked out the building’s power has resulted in classes being relocated for at least a week while the school waits for new equipment to arrive.
Just before 6 pm. a transformer, located in the recent addition to the science building, suddenly caught fire and set off alarms. No one was injured in the incident, as the fire burned only in the room which contained the transformers.
There was also no danger to students who were working in labs while the incident took place, according to Ric Taylor, associate vice president for campus planning and operations.
“All of the life-safety systems, such as venting and lighting, are controlled by an emergency generator,” said Taylor. “When the power was originally knocked out, the emergency system came up immediately.”
A reason for the sudden fire has not yet been found, though is it expected to be the result of a product malfunction.
“There was nothing wrong with the wiring or electronics put in by the school,” said Martha Milcarek, assistant vice president of public relations. “It appears to be a defect in the transformer itself.”
Taylor expects to explore the issue of why a transformer, which was less than three years old, caught fire more fully once the building in back at normal operational power.
“We don’t believe this is a problem with the building,” he said. “After we’ve replaced the transformer, we’ll be looking at the old one to try and determine what happened.”
Taylor said that by the weekend, they had power running so that faculty could use their offices if they wanted. By 2 p.m. on Monday, they brought in a large outdoor replacement generator to supply power to the whole building. He expects the replacement transformer to arrive soon.
“We actually just ordered the new piece and it should be shipped by the week of Feb. 2,” Taylor said.
Milcarek said that she expected classes to be relocated from the building until at least next Monday, but Taylor thought that everyone could perhaps be allowed back in sooner.
“I actually think it would be possible to move people back in by tomorrow,” Taylor told The Mirror on Tuesday night.
However, he was not sure if that decision would be made immediately and admitted it could take longer.
Despite the inconvenience the fire has caused, Taylor expressed satisfaction in the way the school was able to continue operating relatively smoothly.
“There was really a good effort by everyone involved to make sure that everything progressed quickly, from identifying the problem to getting it fixed,” he said.
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