Wednesday Morning Fire at Thompson Middle School Causes $100,000 in Damage

A fire inside  early Wednesday morning caused more than $100,000 in damage to the building and computer equipment.

A cart containing about 15 recharging laptop computers caught fire at around 3 a.m. while being stored in a room next to the school’s Learning Resource Center, district officials said Wednesday. St. Charles firefighters responded to the fire alarm and extinguished the blaze.

No students were in the school at the time and no one was injured.

Smoke and fire damaged computer equipment, ceiling tiles and other parts of the building, said district Superintendent Don Schlomann. Cleaning will take place through the weekend.

Schlomann said most of the $100,000 estimate comes from damage to the parts of the building, but some of the computer equipment also stored in the room that was damaged solely by smoke will have to be professionally cleaned. 

The cause appears to have been an electrical problem with the “Computer on Wheels” or COW, a cart used to transport and recharge school laptops.

Students were kept out of the LRC and a science classroom located near the storage closet were the fire took place during class Wednesday.