London Fire Brigade reports that at 20:23 on Tuesday 11th November, fire crews were called to an automatic fire alarm actuating at a three storey secondary school on St Mary’s Road in Newham, east London. On arrival they were met by the school caretaker who had been about to secure the building when the fire alarm actuated. Fire crews searched the area of actuation and found a small extinguished fire in a cupboard within an Art and Technology classroom. The cupboard contained a 12kW kiln, able to run up to 1300 degrees Celsius, which is used to fire class pottery projects. A fire had occurred involving some plastic trays left on top of a kiln which had been switched on several hours earlier.
The school, built in 2010, was fitted with a sprinkler system. A single sprinkler head, located inside the cupboard, had operated and extinguished the fire. No fire-fighting action was required and crews were then engaged in ‘salvage’ operations.