HUSTONVILLE — The current heat wave may be partially to blame for a small roof fire at Hustonville Elementary School Saturday afternoon.
Hustonville Mayor Marc Spivey and Lincoln schools Superintendent Karen Hatter said a plastic bag of trash that had been left on the school's roof by construction workers spontaneously combusted, prompting neighbors to call 911 with reports of flames shooting out the top of the school.
Hatter said firefighters extinguished the flaming trash, but not before heat caused a seam in the roof to separate, allowing some of the water used by firefighters to leak through into a classroom.
Spivey said the fire left an approximately three-foot-wide burn mark on the roof.
No one was present at the school when the fire started. Hatter said the school has not filed an insurance claim yet and there is no estimate of the cost of damage to the school, but it isn't very serious.
"Really, there's no structural damage," she said.
Volunteer firefighters from Hustonville were first on the scene in the department's new $85,000 fire truck, Spivey said.
"It ( the new truck) worked awesome," he added. "Our firefighters — I cannot give them enough praise. They did a wonderful job. … It could have been a bad situation if our firefighters had not taken care of the situation."
Lincoln Fire Chief Danny Glass said county firefighters also initially responded to the scene, but within a few minutes of the first call they were cancelled because the situation was under control.
