Old laptop suspected to be cause of school fire

[Ditto]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-highlands-islands-51614060.

 

Fortunately, no one hurt. In fact, if you research school fires, the records for injuries/deaths is surprisingly low.

[caffrey]

Blaming IT again

[Davit2005]

Blaming IT again

 

Easy to blame and scare monger to those that do not understand, the media seem very good at that.

 

 

But glad no injuries and good work by the staff concerned to get the children and other staff out safely.

Edited February 25, 2020 by Davit2005

[Edu-IT]

Regardless of the cause, this is devastating for the school. Glad nobody was hurt though and good luck to them getting things back together.

[synaesthesia]

Would love to know how they think that's the case - for instance a dodgy battery in any device let alone a laptop could go up and that'd be the source of the initial flame/heat maybe, but a whole school wouldn't go up unless something else was seriously wrong - for instance laptop trolleys covered in paper or kept in a flammable environment, laptop left on buried underneath a load of marking etc.

[bald_pig]

I'm guessing that the source of the fire is wherever they kept the laptops?

[Andrew_C]

I wonder if it had been PATed?

[mavhc]

Would you trust the advice of someone who hyphenates laptop though?

 

https://www.highland.gov.uk/news/article/12334/update_-_fire_at_park_primary_invergordon

[LeMarchand]

Laptop at fault, or sparks from its cable that had been run over by a chair multiple times? Or overheating in its nest of paper?

[MatthewL]

For the fire to develop to the level it did I suspect something else has to be involved.

 

If this was an electrical fire during the night when the building was unoccupied and no one to raise the alarm as quick as say during the day time maybe but a daytime fire plenty of people to raise the alarm within minutes, another 5-8 minutes for fire to attend, got to be more to it. I'm no fire investigator but seen enough jobs over the years to have a good enough idea.

[PotNoodleTech]

That's an interesting one. I expected the fire to be in the middle of the night when the laptop was on charge. Theoretically if the laptop had been PAT tested, and was OK - then what could anyone have done to stop it? Any device with a battery is capable of self combusing, look at the number of laptops/phones that melt around the world on a daily basis.

 

Remember - if it's a lithium battery they can go up like a fire cracker, easily capable of starting a fire in a primary school which more often than not has LOTS of paper displays and paper ceiling hanging displays and generally paper kindling strewn across every wall floor and ceiling!

[HTCPCP]

That's an interesting one. I expected the fire to be in the middle of the night when the laptop was on charge. Theoretically if the laptop had been PAT tested, and was OK - then what could anyone have done to stop it? Any device with a battery is capable of self combusing, look at the number of laptops/phones that melt around the world on a daily basis.

 

Remember - if it's a lithium battery they can go up like a fire cracker, easily capable of starting a fire in a primary school which more often than not has LOTS of paper displays and paper ceiling hanging displays and generally paper kindling strewn across every wall floor and ceiling!

 

 

that was my thought - Li-Ion - those things are nasty when they go. Old battery, where the swell wasn't noticed or was ignored. I've now started to routinely check all 3 year old laptops after having a couple of laptops come in with swolen batteries.

 

Once alight, flashpoint can be hit without too much around to help it