Fire at Newmarket school disrupts start of year

摘要

More than 400 pupils at St Felix Middle School in Newmarket, which was destroyed by fire last month, are starting the new term late and will be housed in neighbouring schools and then a temporary ￡1.5 million 'education village' in the school grounds. Around 70 firefighters tackled the on 5 August, though with strong winds the fire spread too quickly to save the buildings. A 14 year old boy has appeared in court charged with deliberately starting the fire. Commenting on the fire, Stewart Kidd of the British Automatic Fire Sprinkler Association said: "Since last year, it has been mandatory for new build schools to undertake a full risk analysis to evaluate the need for sprinklers and other fire precautions. There's no doubt that this fire will have devastated the community which the school served, and other schools must heed the warning." According to BAFSA, there are around 30 school fires and up to 20 incidents of arson in schools a week, and physical damage to schools cost in excess of ￡74 million in 2006. Only around 300 schools out of 28,000 have fire sprinkler systems installed.