Bayfield officials were uncertain Thursday afternoon why a small electrical fire at a nearby AmeriGas propane building led to panic and the evacuation of the high school early Thursday morning.
“It just got completely out of hand,” Upper Pine Fire Protection District Chief Bruce Evans said. “There was a very simple fire in a wall.”
Students filed out of the high school and onto the football field around 8 a.m. after emergency vehicles responded to the old AmeriGas building at 828 County Road 501. The building still is being used, but the main office has moved to 2282 Bayfield Parkway.
Two girls began to hyperventilate and had to be treated by medical personnel – one at the nurse’s office and one on the football field, Evans said. Both were quickly released. He thinks that maybe students began talking, speculating and texting on smartphones, and after a chain of gossip, suddenly “it’s turned into a propane explosion.”
The fire began when two AmeriGas employees, working with a small propane tank, dumped out some liquid propane, Evans said. The spilled propane expanded and seeped under a wall, and found an ignition source at an exposed wire.
The fire was contained in the wall. Basically, it ran out of oxygen, Evans said. A section of wall about 8 by 10 feet was damaged.
At some point, “somebody panicked and notified the school to evacuate,” Evans said.
There was no need for the panic, and never any threat of an explosion or major fire, Evans said.
The all-clear to re-enter the high school was given about 9 a.m.
johnp@durangoherald.com
The caption for this story was changed after its original publication. An incorrect fire protection district appeared in the original.
