An electrical fire at Elkford's Rocky Mountain Elementary School Monday morning has shut it down temporarily. Elkford Fire Rescue attended the scene at 7:45 a.m. to put out the blaze.
“One of the teachers there had reported a very strong smell of smoke,” explained Deputy Fire Chief Corey Kortmeyer. “Once we cleared the building, we thought there was just maybe one or two fires, but apparently there was several electrical fires that had occurred within their heating and cooling system. We did have an electrical power outage last night and I’m suspecting that it may have been a contributing cause to it.”
Kortmeyere went on to say, “The fires were quickly contained and controlled and the building and contents did sustain some damage, but luckily no one was hurt and no further damage occurred to the rest of the building because it could have been much, much worse.”
The damage to the building itself was mostly due to heavy smoke. A restoration company is assessing the site and will begin cleanup Tuesday morning. Rocky Mountain Elementary School remains closed and it is up to the School Board to determine when it may reopen. They are in the process of establishing an alternate location for classes, which they expect to have in place by Monday, June 9.