A day after the San Juan County Fire and Rescue responded to an electrical transformer fire at Kirtland Central High School, students studied remotely on Tuesday while crews worked to repair electrical systems at the school.
Central Consolidated School District announced on its Facebook page that the building would be without electricity for the morning and part of the afternoon.
All other schools such as Kirtland Middle School and elementary schools in the area – Ojo Amarillo, Kirtland Elementary, and Judy Nelson – continued in-class instruction on a regular schedule.
Kirtland Central High School staff was available until 9:30 a.m. Tuesday to assist students in gathering materials for remote learning.
KCHS students are also able to pick up breakfast at 7:45 a.m. and lunch at 11:30 a.m. at the middle school.
Monday, the school was ordered to shelter in place, with parents asked to standby for more information when the fire broke out.
Fire crews cleared the scene and handed any additional management back over to the utility crews. Farmington Electric Utility System power crews were on scene to manage restoration of electrical services. An electrical outage affected much of the township of Kirtland.
Students were safe, and no other fire danger to surrounding buildings or residences was present.
San Juan County spokesman Devin Neeley said San Juan County Fire and Rescue had six units on scene, including two engines, a tanker, a utility service vehicle, a rescue unit and command unit.
Farmington Electric Utility System Director Hank Adair, said “a wire connection failed when one of the wires fell across another wire with multiple phases, and the fault caused the transformer to overheat.” He said that it is a very large transformer, a 1,500 kilovolt-ampere, for which they happen to have a replacement unit available.
“Our crews worked diligently and very hard into the night ... and had the power restored to the school by 11 p.m. last night,” Adair said.
“We’ve had a lot of weather events, but there was nothing specific that day that triggered it, but things over time happen,” he said.
