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Amador Valley High School’s power has been restored after a second alarm fire engulfed a portion of the small gym, according to school and fire officials.
No injuries have been reported and the cause of the fire is still under investigation, Livermore-Pleasanton Fire Department spokesperson Rosa Ramos told the Weekly.
“The rest of the campus was cleared — the fire was contained to just the small gym.” Pleasanton Unified School District director of communications Patrick Gannon said. “There’s no safety concern for students.”
Gannon said PUSD is working with the fire department to find out what caused the fire and will share that information once they have a solid answer.
“We don’t want to share misinformation so … we’ll share that information once we have more confirmed and solid information,” Gannon said on Monday. “Right now, our focus is … supporting students and making sure that we can continue to serve the students.”
According to Ramos, LPFD dispatched two units to respond to a commercial alarm at the high school just before 8 p.m. on Sunday. Gannon previously told the Weekly when the fire first broke out, that a newly installed alarm system had helped notify local authorities so they could put out the fire before it spread.
“On arrival, the first unit found a large amount of smoke coming from the gymnasium and requested an upgrade of the call, requiring additional units to be dispatched to the incident,” Ramos said. “The on-scene battalion chief immediately requested a second alarm response, which provided additional units to assist with fire options.”
She said it took roughly 30 minutes for 13 crews in total, including LPFD and Alameda County Fire Department units, to put the fire out.Â
“Firefighters remained on scene for several hours to search for potential exposures to other areas of the facility,” Ramos said.
Gannon said that standard PG&E safety procedure forces the school to shut down its entire power grid, which is why the entire school did not have any electricity Monday morning. He said the reason it took until around 11 a.m. for power to be restored — even though the fire had been extinguished — was because school buildings have to be thoroughly inspected by the California Division of the State Architect office before giving PG&E the all clear to turn on the power grid.
“Aside from the lights being out this morning, everything else was fine. It (was) just a little disruptive,” Gannon said. “Power is being restored to buildings as we speak. We anticipate that all of our buildings will be back online by noon, if not sooner.”
He also said that as he stood at the quad area of the school Monday morning, he couldn’t smell the smoke anymore and the fire department said the school was safe for students.
“There may have been a faint hint of smoke but there was never a cause for concern for safety,” Gannon said.
He said that if people had smelled smoke earlier on Monday, it was most likely because of a separate incident where a student lit a garbage bin on fire in one of the bathrooms at the school.
Gannon said there might have been some misinformation circulating regarding bathrooms being closed at Amador but it was just that one bathroom that was closed because “a student made a poor choice.” Gannon said the other fire never posed any danger to the school.
The damage at the 100-year-old small gymnasium was contained to one of the corners and Gannon said he was thankful it was not the large gym, which is more heavily used by the school. He said the small gym is usually used for practices, certain games and is usually opened up for students during lunch time.
Gannon said the impact to the school is minor and that staff will be making adjustments so basic school operations are not impacted by the small gym being closed.
“It’s just used as a secondary athletic facility and space for students when they need it,” Gannon said. “It’s been cordoned off with … tape and barriers around the building so people don’t go in.”
He also said that the district’s Child Nutrition Services Department, which is located at Amador, never lost power because it uses a different power grid so the district never lost its ability to serve students food.
The fire at the small gym also came at an interesting time for the district as staff have been working on the design phase for the new athletic facility that was included as part of the project list for the $395 million Measure I bond that voters passed in 2022. The plan includes demolishing the small gym, along with the large gym, and also includes replacing the Amador Theater that is located right next to the small gym. The theater was not affected by the fire.
“We have a community meeting tomorrow, which may be postponed,” Gannon said. “It’s literally to talk about those projects.”
Long overdue updates to Amador, hope this incident bring to light the needs to move fast on modernizing the school infrastructure.