Heater malfunctions at Bakersfield School, causing fire that was quickly extinguished
photo by Ed Doiron Firefighters with West Plains city fire department, far left, and Gainesville Fire Department, utilize their ladder fire trucks to analyze the Bakersfield School building last Tuesday morning, Dec. 10, after a fire broke out in the school’s heating and cooling unit. Other fire trucks, pictured from left next to the Gainesville ladder truck, were those of Tecumseh, Bakersfield and Caulfield Fire Departments. Rural Howell County and Gamaliel, Arkansas, departments also responded in mutual aid.
Bakersfield School’s Maintenance Supervisor Jason Marsh first learned of an issue with the school’s HVAC unit on the evening of Friday, Dec. 6, when a school employee reported to him that the boys locker rooms seemed especially cold and weren’t warming up like they usually do.
When classes resumed on Tuesday, Dec. 10, (Bakersfield School operates on a four-day school week, Tuesday through Friday), Jason decided his first order of business would be to check on the unit to see what might’ve caused the lack of heat.
He propped an extension ladder against the wall and climbed up to check the unit out. Everything was in working order, and he didn’t see any obvious issues.
So, Jason went inside the building and turned on the thermostat to warm the school to its usual temperature. Initially, everything appeared normal.
However, not long after, Jason walked into the coach’s office in the gym and was met with thick black smoke filling the air. Realizing the danger, he sprang into action.
“I called Amy as I was running to the bus barn to grab a sledgehammer to bust through the wall so I could get to the flames. I told her to call 911,” Jason recounted, referring to Superintendent Amy Padgett, who immediately followed Jason’s orders.
With a sledgehammer in hand, Jason raced to the west end of the gym, where flames were coming out of the upper area of the wall near the HVAC unit. It seemed like fate that the ladder he had used earlier was still propped against the wall. Jason quickly climbed the ladder and used the sledgehammer to break through the wall. While he was knocking the hole in the wall, he asked some students nearby to run and get the fire extinguisher from the gym. BHS student Morris Collins ran and grabbed the extinguisher while Jason worked to create an opening large enough to spray the fire extinguisher directly at the flames. His quick thinking and decisive actions helped successfully extinguish the blaze.
“Had the ladder not been in place, there’s no way I would have been able to put it out,” he told The Times.
Meanwhile, firefighters and emergency responders were dispatched. The Bakersfield Volunteer Fire Department was called first, with mutual aid provided by fire departments from Caulfield, Tecumseh, Gainesville, West Plains, Rural Howell County and Gamaliel, Arkansas. The Ozark County Ambulance, Ozark County Sheriff’s Department, and Missouri State Highway Patrol also responded to the scene.
School staff and teachers executed fire drill procedures seamlessly, evacuating students to the cafeteria, a space that was safe from the fire. Despite the chaos, the school communicated as best as it could to inform parents about the situation, announcing an early dismissal at 9:30 a.m. that morning. Students were sent home through the normal early dismissal routine, with bus routes running and parents given the option to pick up their children from the school. To add to the challenge, the school’s phone lines were down, leaving only the fax line operational.
The school’s electricity was temporarily shut off as a precaution because some electrical components had been sprayed with water during the incident. Representatives from Howell Rural Electric Cooperative assessed the situation and deemed it safe to restore power.
Later that day, the school posted an update on Facebook: “The fire has been contained, all students have been safely dismissed, and we are continuing to work with first responders and the fire department. It appears the cause of the fire was an HVAC unit, and damage is limited to the west end of the gym wall.”
The Missouri State Fire Marshall’s office responded and investigated the fire, ruling it as “accidental,” according to Mike O’Connell with the Missouri Department of Public Safety. He said it started in the duct work, and the resulting damage was classified as minor.
Jason says a squirrel’s nest inside the duct work was the culprit of the fire. He said that the unit in question hadn’t been turned on for the year, as the main gym’s heating source keeps the locker rooms heated until temperatures drop very low, as they had that week, at which time the extra unit is needed. “We obviously couldn’t see the nest and have no clue how the squirrel was able to get there, but when I was putting the fire out, Coach [Michael] Mahan literally watched a flying squirrel leap from our main unit, and by that time, I could see the nest when I put out the fire,” Jason said.
Although the situation definitely caused a hectic morning, it also demonstrated the resilience and preparedness of the Bakersfield school students and staff in the face of an emergency. Reflecting on the incident, Superintendent Padgett expressed her gratitude for Jason’s bravery and the coordinated efforts of staff and emergency responders.
“We would like to sincerely thank all the students and staff for the quick response to the evacuation,” she said. “The damage was limited thanks to the swift action of our maintenance director, Jason Marsh. The response from local first responders was tremendous and very much appreciated!”