At 03:11 hours on August 28th 2017, Scottish Fire & Rescue Service received a call to a report of a sprinkler activation at Deans Community High school in Livingston. This is a 3 storey PFI school, built 2010, with a total area over all floors 15,000 m2.
This fire started in a free-standing fridge within a first floor classroom that was used to teach home economics. There were wooden cupboards and equipment adjacent to the fire. One concealed sprinkler head on the school’s wet pipe, tank fed system had operated to extinguish the fire.
The school was unoccupied at the time of the fire and it is reported that had the sprinklers not activated it is presumed that there would have been a large proportion of the compartment involved in fire.
The school operated normally the day after the fire with only the affected classroom being un-usable. There was some associated water damage but this was also cleared within a day. The costs associated with the fire is reported to have been in the region of £1000 with about 30m² of the floor being affected.