School gym alarm system works perfectly in smoke incident
Plains-Pardise Rural Fire District and Plains Community Ambulance are dispatched to Plains School. (Tracy Scott/Valley Press)
At 4:07 p.m., Dec. 14, Plains Fire Department and the Plains Community Ambulance were dispatched to a fire in the new gymnasium at the Plains School.
The emergency was confined to the laundry room within the new gymnasium. A malfunctioning washer machine caused a smoke only emergency.
Superintendent Thom Chisholm said he was grateful that the new gym was equipped with a state-of-the-art alarm system. The smoke detection system sounded the alarm without activating the emergency sprinkler system.
Chisholm said the new alarm system worked as designed. If the water sprinkler system had been activated, it would have caused thousands of dollars in damage. The damage was only smoke related and was quickly cleaned up.