More than one month after a fire at Murray High School, the auditorium remains closed for cleaning and restoration and construction students are not back in their shop.

However, classes resumed in person March 16 after three weeks of remote learning and the school library reopened March 30. While the main gymnasium and new wing under construction were not damaged, smoke and water damage from sprinklers across the building led to an extensive cleanup effort that shut down the school entirely.

The fire began shortly before 8 a.m., Feb. 20 in the construction shop, where 30-year teacher Quinn Drury said an equipment malfunction sparked a chain reaction inside the dust collection system.

“I had two really good kids working on a sander on a project before school,” he said. “The sander burned and that can happen when you cut too deep. When I checked the sander, the sandpaper inside it had separated. Normally, when it separates, it will go to the outside and kick off the machine. But something that’s never happened before happened and it overlapped, making it extra thick and it dug extra deep and burned extra hot. Then embers along with probably a little bit of paper and sawdust ended up going into the dust collection system. It was a freak thing that happened.”

Drury, who evacuated the five students in the shop, said he tried to extinguish the fire, but it spread beyond reach.

“I started fixing the sander, but then I saw all this smoke in the shop. I used seven or eight different extinguishers trying to get the fire out, but once it’s up in the duct system, there’s no way to put it out with an extinguisher,” he said. “It would go out and then just come right back.”

Smoke traveled to the second floor, where it alerted Principal Quinn Linde and the school resource officer. After checking the shop, the officer called the fire department as the entire school evacuated.

No one was injured. A few hand saws and the dust collector were destroyed. With the widespread smoke and water sprinkler damage, Murray School District spokesman Doug Perry said it forced a full school closure.

“Every single ceiling tile had to be replaced throughout the entire school,” he said. “They had to go through every single book in the library and clean them off because there’s a residue that settles on them. When smoke goes through the HVAC system, it settled everywhere so that forced us to pivot to online learning.”

Perry said it’s not ideal as students don’t have the hands-on connectivity with their teachers. 

“It’s not something we prefer, but it’s nice to know that Murray is ahead of the curve; we’ve got the digital infrastructure in place to be able to pull it off quickly and effectively,” he said.

While most classes went online, some construction students were able to continue working on the home they’re building. However, when classes resumed in-person for the rest of the school, the construction class used a classroom to prepare for a state woodworking exam earlier than usual while waiting for their shop to be reopened.

“It’s a bit harder as they haven’t had all the experience yet, but they’re doing a good job preparing for it,” Drury said. “In May, when we usually do the state testing, we’ll be working on their projects because we’ve lost six weeks.”

Perry did not have an estimated cost of the cleanup and restoration, which he said should be covered by insurance and the State Risk Management Department.

By fall, a new dust collection system, which will include fire mitigation systems such as spark arrestors and inline sprinklers to prevent similar incidents, should be installed.

After the incident, Drury and Perry said they learned this type of fire has happened at other area high schools. Drury said Alpine School District has loaned Murray High portable dust collectors until the new system is installed.

Although disruptive, officials say the outcome could have been far worse.

“They caught it early and acted fast,” Perry said. “We’re thankful for that.”