St Lucy school shut as smoke, ash stall clean-up

Classes at the Daryll Jordan Secondary School in St Lucy will not resume on Tuesday as smoke and ash from a nearby fire continue to pose a health risk, preventing clean-up crews from entering the campus and delaying any return to normal operations, the principal said Monday.

Principal Ken Layne said persistent air quality issues and active smouldering east of the campus meant remediation work could not begin, creating a bottleneck to reopening.

The school was forced to close on Monday as ash and smoke drifted into classrooms from an adjacent fire zone.

School authorities were expected to issue a further update to parents, guardians and staff later on Monday, following a reassessment of campus conditions and air quality.

“We are closed today because of the ash in the building, and then there is still a lot of smoke today,” Layne said. “Right now, to the east of the school, there is still smoking — the embers are still smouldering up there. That is affecting us right now. Even to start the cleaning process, that is affecting us.”

The disruption prompted urgent contingency arrangements for pupils sitting Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC) examinations. They were relocated to The Alexandra School in Speightstown to avoid any disadvantage.

“They are there and settled, so they will be writing the exams there [Monday] for sure. We still have to assess the situation to see what will happen [Tuesday]. Later on [Monday], we will reassess.”

Any decision on resuming classes would depend on updates from emergency services and environmental teams later in the day, he said, with the inability to begin sanitisation remaining a key obstacle.

“Everything would hinge on that,” Layne said, regarding the delayed clean-up operation. “We cannot start cleaning yet.”

Addressing concerns about whether such fires are a recurring issue for the St Lucy school, the principal said events of this scale were rare, although there had been a similar incident last year.

“It is not a perennial problem. We experienced a prior one last year, but previous to that, we did not have anything to this extent that resulted in the closure of the school. We just had it last year and this one. This one is much more extensive than anything we have had in recent years because it started way to the east, and now the fire is still burning to the west of the school … it skipped the road.”

Despite the disruption, Layne praised nearby landowners for assisting emergency efforts as the fire spread.

“We have been working with the landowners, those in charge of the lands to the east of us, and we have been establishing some partnerships, getting them to clean regularly.” 

“They have been good corporate partners with us. This is the ABC Farms, so they have been working with us to alleviate problems. In the case of a fire, there is not much they can do, but they were out with their water tenders and assisting in putting out the fire.”

(RR)