The Green Bay Metro Fire Department released its investigation into an early morning fire (caught on tape) that started in a high school gymnasium on Aug. 8, causing $7.5 million in damage and delaying the start of school for the students. The 36-page report said the fire started after rags soaked with sealer spontaneously combusted.
The report includes interviews with the school district crew who, the day before the fire started, had finished sealing the gym floor. To those in the hardwood refinishing industry, their statements to fire department investigators about their standard procedure for disposing of cleanup materials are disconcerting.
The four-member crew, employees of the school district, cleaned up excess sealer with paper towels. Then they threw the towels into two plastic-lined trashcans inside the gymnasium. The bags were left open so the paper towels would dry out. The lead member of the crew would tell school janitors to let the garbage with the paper towels sit for a while before emptying into the school’s dumpsters outside the building.
The crew had finished more than 25 floors during the summer and followed this method of disposal in each one.
In this case, the paper towels spontaneously combusted around 1 a.m. in the morning. The fire filled the school with smoke and caused $7.5 million in damages, the area’s second largest loss caused by fire.
Read the full report here (PDF file). The relevant interviews start of page 17.
