Popular Vocational School In Western Mass. Suffers Fire Damage
Boy, sometimes lightning does strike twice, Berkshire County. And not in a good way. Talk about a run of bad luck for this popular vocational school. Heck, two of my nephews went to school here.
The school I'm referring to? Smith Vocational and Agricultural High School in Northampton. When I say bad luck, I'm not kidding. Just one day after suffering some roof damage on a campus building due to Sunday's strong thunderstorm, they had to deal with a fire in a different campus building.
Can't make this stuff up, folks. After Sunday night's storm brought about a partial roof collapse to one of their buildings on campus, a fire did some serious damage to another building yesterday afternoon.
According to a Facebook post from Northampton Fire Rescue, crews were called to Smith Vocational around 2 p.m. Monday, May 23rd. Thanks to their heroics, the 2-alarm fire was extinguished pretty quickly. However, fire crews remained for several hours afterward to make sure everyone was safe and to look out for possible hotspots.
According to Northampton fire officials, the building(building E) is a complete loss, with over $400,000 in damages. And that's just to the building itself, not including what was inside(classrooms and lawn equipment such as tractors, lawnmowers, etc.)
Thankfully no one was injured and everyone is safe. The cause of the fire remains under investigation by the Northampton Police and Fire Departments. For more info(and a quick video), check out Northampton Fire Rescue's Facebook page here.