Nevada County Picayune and Gurdon Times Newspaper Archive

Old high school has chemical fire

A chemical fire between the buildings at the old Gurdon High School on Third Street was extinguished in 10 minutes Thursday night, Aug. 24, by dry chemicals from a fire extinguisher.

Robert Burns said, "We could not put it out with water and we really did not know what the substance was. We found out the dry chemicals got it out quickly."

Six Gurdon volunteer firefighters arrived at the scene at 6:45 p.m. on Aug. 24 and stayed until 10:30 p.m. to provide lighting and other assistance to the Clark County Emergency Services crew.

Jim Burns, manager of Clark County Emergency Services, was on hand Friday morning, Aug. 25, to meet with Dean VanDerhoff, the emergency response section manager of the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality from Little Rock.

VanDerhoff arrived at the scene midmorning with his assistant, Mike Parette.

Burns and a crew of three from Clark County Hazardous Materials conducted the initial investigation on the night of the fire and they discovered between 100 and 150 more bottles of unknown chemicals in the high schools old science laboratory.

"We could identify what some of it was," Burns said. "The bottles were filled with different types of acids, poisons and formaldehyde. It is apparently biology class materials left behind from when the school system vacated the premises."

Burns also told VanDerhoff about four cases of missing chemicals discovered with area juveniles in a nearby woods by the Clark County Sheriffs Department

"They were mixing the chemicals together to see what would happen in a five-gallon bucket," Burns said.

VanDerhoff and Parette took over the investigation for ADEQ and said the first priority was to locate, pack and remove all of the chemicals involved.

He said this should be done soon.

"One of the bottles outside the biology lab is bubbling right now in the sun," he said. "Whoever is responsible for this place needs to contract the work to get rid of these chemicals, or else I have to contact someone to clean it up."

Dean said the juveniles who mixed the chemicals in the woods should have a medical examination "because we really dont know what they had and the fumes may be toxic."

Dean said once action to collect and remove has been started, it may take two to three additional days to completely remove the chemicals.

Gurdon School District Superintendent Bobby Smithson said the district sold the old high school to Mike McKenzie after the new middle school was built.

"We moved into the new middle school in 2000," he said. "I believe the board sold the property to Mike in 2002. We moved the stuff that was valuable to us and left the rest."

Smithson said if the school is still liable for leaving the biological chemicals in the building, the district will accept the liability.

McKenzie could not be reached for comment at press time.