SLV students prevent serious school fire

A group of San Lorenzo Valley High School students in the right place at the right time helped avert a serious fire at San Lorenzo Valley Middle School last week.
After a round of disc golf behind the San Lorenzo Valley school campuses Friday, June 19, Garrett Todd noticed a column of smoke coming from the middle school office.
When he, his brother Kyle and their friend Patrick Salibi reached the source of the smoke, they found the middle school office wall burning.
“It was growing fast,” Salibi said. “In a matter of minutes, it would have burned the wall completely.”
The trio said they tried to pull a fire alarm on campus to no avail before locating the school custodian, Mark Lust, who used a power-washer to extinguish the fire.
The fire began when a 12-year-old girl lit a piece of paper on fire, blew out the flames and then tossed the paper into a lost and found bin next to the office, according to a Santa Cruz County Sheriff’s Office report.
The smoldering paper ignited the items in the bin and quickly caught on the wall.
The start of the June 19 fire was similar to that of the blaze that burned down the high school library in December 2006. That fire started in a recycling bin next to the library.
Felton fire Chief Ron Rickabaugh said the boys and janitor did a good job containing the fire, which shattered a window and started to torch the roof’s overhang.
“They had the fire basically controlled by the time we got there,” Rickabaugh said.