‘Pull the fire alarm, the school is on fire!’ – roof blaze at Rock Hill elementary

Students, teachers and staff were evacuated from Richmond Drive Elementary School after a fire broke out in the main building Friday afternoon, according to the Rock Hill Fire Department.

The fire started at about 1:30 p.m. in a construction area on the roof of the school, said Dustin Wilson, a Rock Hill School District spokesman.

Rock Hill Deputy Fire Chief Mark Simmons said contractors were hoisting tar up onto the roof and some of it spilled out, igniting nearby insulation.

Witnesses reported hearing an explosion. Simmons said a propane tank on the roof of the building “off-gassed.”

“There was no propane tank explosion,” he said. “It’s going to hiss and release some of the vapors to keep it from exploding. Off-gas is a normal procedure when a propane tank heats up.”

Some smoke damage was reported inside the school, Simmons said, and one classroom had some water damage.

“The fire was not actually that big,” he said. “It was confined to that small construction area on the back of the school. The tar that was burning had a big black cloud, and that made it visible from a long distance away.”

The employees were non-district personnel working under contract to build a new restroom, Wilson said.

Piedmont EMS paramedics were on scene, but officials said no one was treated for any injuries.

Teachers and school staff evacuated students from the school after a fire alarm sounded, then waited with their classes for school activity buses that shuttled them to Winthrop Coliseum to be reunited with their parents.

By 3:15 p.m., several hundred people had gathered at the coliseum parking lot as buses filled with children began to arrive.

Sally Nichols was waiting to pick up her 8-year-old daughter, Olivia.

Nichols said she was at the school, earlier, though, standing outside the front office to pick up Olivia. A father and two children came out of the school, she said, and one of the children said, “It looks like something’s on fire.”

“You could see black smoke just billowing out the back side of the school,” Nichols said.

The father went inside, Nichols said, and told Principal Pat Maness, “I think you’ve got something on fire.”

Maness told the parents there was no fire, that it was just smoke caused by the roof work, Nichols said. Nichols said she also went into the school and told Maness that she could see a fire.

Nichols said a fire alarm went off, and Maness told the parents it was just a fire drill.

“Then a male teacher came in from the playground,” Nichols said, “and ran in the front door of the school and said, ‘Pull the fire alarm, the school is on fire!’ ”

Teachers and other school employees quickly began to evacuate students – about half of whom were “crying, and wanted to go home,” Nichols said.

“When they were trying to calm the kids,” Nichols said, “they said everybody was fine and everybody got out.”

Nichols’ adult daughter, Jennepher Keesee, was with her mother in front of the school. She said she saw a fire that appeared to be coming from the back of the building.

A few minutes after seeing the fire, Keesee said, they heard a loud “boom.”

Parents who picked up their children at the coliseum said they received several recorded phone messages from the school district with information about the incident and where to pick up their children.

“I was terrified,” said Ashley Henley, the mother of an 8-year-old boy, as she was waiting to pick him up at the coliseum, “because it said (the fire) was inside the main building.”

Heather Powell, the mother of two children, ages 7 and 10, said she thought the situation was handled well.

“They kept calling us to inform us what was going on,” she said.

Eight-year-old Campbell Compton, who was picked up at the coliseum with her younger sister by their father, Robbie Compton, said she was in a classroom studying Chinese when the students saw smoke.

“We went to the window and saw fire,” Campbell said.

Her teacher went to the window to see what the students were looking at, Campbell said, and then the fire alarm went off and students were taken out of the building.

Robbie Compton said Campbell and her 5-year-old sister were not upset by the fuss. He said the school district did “a phenomenal job” in responding to the emergency.

Ayanna Williams, 10, who was picked up at the coliseum by her mother, Lakesha Williams, said she saw “smoke coming from where the PE room was, and everybody was panicking.”

Lakesha Williams said Ayanna was initially upset by the crisis, but Williams was grateful that no one was hurt. “This could have been worse,” she said.

More than 35 police officers responded to direct traffic and assist with the evacuation, said Capt. Mark Bollinger, spokesman for the Rock Hill Police Department. That included detectives and every other available officer.

The police department conducts annual training with schools to prepare for events like fires, tornadoes or active shooters, he said.

While police understand parents are anxious in emergency events, he said, it’s important to await instructions for picking up their children instead of going to the scene.

“Parents got their students before the teachers or police officers knew,” he said Friday. “We have to spend hours trying to see who’s got who.”

This story was originally published April 29, 2016 at 2:34 PM with the headline "‘Pull the fire alarm, the school is on fire!’ – roof blaze at Rock Hill elementary."