A fire that ripped through the art wing at Gunn High School Tuesday night caused an estimated $2.5 million in damage to the building. But it also consumed the hard work of art projects and portfolios of dozens of students.
"That's the tragedy of the whole thing. We have such great kids who do such great work," said ceramics teacher Ron Cooper, whose room and kilns were heavily damaged in the fire. "We're not going to stop. We'll just move and keep going."
But for the next few months, the students won't have access to all of their usual equipment, such as ceramics kilns, and will have to meet for class in the industrial arts room. Portable classrooms will be brought onto campus, and classes shuffled around to make room for all of the students, said Principal Chris Rich.
Firefighters were still investigating the cause of Tuesday's night's fire, focusing much of their attention on an electric light fixture that had been flickering the day of the fire, said Firefighter Tony Spitaleri. Investigators, however, have not determined the cause.
The fire caused an estimated $2.5 million to $3.5 million in damage to the predominantly wood building, which had a shingle roof with vertical concrete columns supporting it.
The building's alarm went off at 10:39 p.m., alerting a security company that contacted the Palo Alto Fire Department. Fire officials say that as the first engine drove down Arastradero Road, the driver could see the tall flames shooting up from the building. The art wing is located on the far side of campus near Foothill Expressway.
Spitaleri said fire crews immediately called a second alarm, followed quickly by a third. It took 60 firefighters from four departments about two hours to control the blaze. Seven engines, three ladder companies, and a rescue truck were on the scene, from Palo Alto, Mountain View, Sunnyvale and Santa Clara County.
The fire was extremely hot, burning through 8-inch steel beams and spreading through the attic of the 25,000-square-foot building. When the roof and ceiling began to collapse, firefighters had to evacuate the building and fight the fire from the outside. "That hampered their ability to fight the fire," Spitaleri said.
Flames reached about two stories above the building, and crews fought to keep the fire from igniting two nearby pine trees to make sure the blaze didn't spread to adjoining Spangenberg Theater, Spitaleri said. A fire wall separated the two halves of the art building, keeping ground-level flames from spreading, but failed to keep the fire from spreading through the roof. He added that it was similar to a stubborn fire that destroyed Hobee's restaurant at Town & Country Village last year.
The fire was the second major blaze to hit a Palo Alto high school in recent months. On Jan. 17, fire caused $500,000 damage to the boys gym at Paly. The cause of the fire was a faulty electric cord.
Oil paintings, drawings, sculptures and ceramics were reduced to ashes in Tuesday's blaze, which left windows melted and cracked.
"The work that the kids were doing was unbelievable," said Kay Little, a P.E. teacher who had just spent several hours Tuesday visiting the art classes. "We have a phenomenal art department. It just blew me away. You could wander around in the room for an hour. Examples of student work is all gone. It's so sad. As a teacher, I don't know how you start over."
Art teacher John Robinson's room was completely destroyed. His students had been gathering their art portfolios together to submit them for a spring show at the Palo Alto Cultural Center.
"Valuable art projects, materials and equipment were destroyed, but we will continue our commitment to art at Gunn," Principal Rich said. "Art is important to Gunn. Classes will resume."
--Elizabeth Darling and Don Kazak
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