Inverurie Academy was evacuated and just “minutes from disaster” 20 years ago after a schoolgirl set fire to the school.
What started as an ordinary Thursday afternoon turned into one of the more dramatic chapters in the secondary school’s history.
Former pupils of a certain age will remember the excitement of being evacuated from the school on that cold March day.
Smoke spotted in Academy corridor
While pupils were sitting in classrooms in the history and languages block, smoke began to fill the corridor two storeys below.
A blaze had broken out in the ground-floor girls’ toilets in the English corridor.
Schoolchildren had only just settled down to lessons after lunch when a female teacher spotted smoke.
A quick investigation revealed the girls’ toilets were ablaze, and the fire alarm was set off.
Although pupils were accustomed to fire drills, the sense of urgency as 1200 children were escorted from the building indicated this was no drill.
Pupils were instructed to leave all possessions and immediately get out of the building by the safest route.
For pupils in the languages block, where the smoke was filling the corridor, this involved making an escape through neighbouring classrooms.
Drama unfolded in front of pupils’ eyes
The former Inverurie Academy building was a large and sprawling site.
Pupils who had been in the older part of the school only realised the seriousness of the situation when three fire engines turned up, sirens blaring and lights flashing.
Pupils stood shivering in their uniforms on the school playing field in their house groups while the drama unfolded before their eyes.
Three Grampian Fire Brigade units from Inverurie and Oldmeldrum were called to the school.
Although smoke was not visible from the outside of the building, crews went in with hoses clad in breathing apparatus.
It took four firefighters to put out the blaze which destroyed a toilet cubicle, and caused extensive smoke and fire damage in the corridor.
Quick-thinking teacher stopped Inverurie Academy 2003 fire spreading
The fire was located in the school’s 1960s-built extension.
The nature of the ‘60s build meant it was characterised by low ceilings and the classrooms on each floor all linked to each other by a series of doors.
Had the fire spread into the roof space, it could have quickly gained traction.
Rector Doug Milne said the situation could have been far worse.
He added: “We were probably within a few minutes of a disaster.
“If the fire had not been detected by the teacher and reported, it could easily have spread to other parts of the school.
“We could have been dealing with a far more serious fire.
“We had to evacuate the school and account for everyone which was done very smoothly and very quickly.”
Clean-up operation on industrial scale
The decision was made to dismiss pupils for the day as the huge task of cleaning up the blackened corridor and history stairwell began.
Many pupils went home without their school bags as they were not allowed back into the building while fire crews were still on the scene.
Mr Milne added: “Not knowing the full extent of the damage, we sent home the pupils which meant getting in touch with bus companies and sending 1,200 pupils away between 1.30pm and 2pm.
“It was a major operation but all pupils were back to school the next morning.”
The following day, Grampian Police confirmed that a 14-year-old third-year school girl was charged with wilful fire-raising over the incident on March 13.
It was revealed that she had taken a lighter to the toilets and set fire to the toilet paper dispenser.
The following year, the school was again counting the costs of deliberate fire-raising when a pupil set fire to the school’s garage.
The blaze sadly destroyed Inverurie Academy’s minibus, which the school had painstakingly fundraised to buy.
Interested in more on Inverurie Academy?
In 2021, we looked back at almost 120 years at the school ahead of its demolition, and recently we remembered its very own ‘Brandon Lee’ bogus schoolgirl.
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