UPDATED: Overnight fire leads to KHS temporary closure

Sept. 30--The smell of smoke hung over Kinston High School Friday following an early morning fire in the school cafeteria.

Firefighters with the Kinston Fire Department responded to an emergency alarm at KHS at around 1 a.m. Friday, after a fire broke out in the dishwasher room of the cafeteria.

The fire was put out in a matter of minutes, but the incident did cause classes to be canceled for the day.

Walls were dotted with soot and glass was scattered around the cafeteria entrance -- firefighters had to shatter a glass door to gain entry to the cafeteria.

"The damage is primarily from smoke and water, as far as I know," LCPS spokesman Patrick Holmes said.

The school has insurance, and maintenance staff was on site Friday to determine how much damage was done and what it would cost to repair damage caused by the fire.

Members of the LCPS nutrition department and health department visited the school Friday morning to make sure the food housed in the cafeteria was still safe to eat, and moved the food stored at KHS to another school so investigators could cut power to the building and search for the source of the fire.

The school expects to be back to normal operation on Monday, though it remains to be seen if the cafeteria will be open.

"We won't have school if we can't eat," Nicholas Harvey II, assistant superintendent, said. "We are exploring alternative options to get food from another location if we have to."

Friday morning, the cafeteria was surrounded by yellow tape, which blocked access to the building while members of the Kinston Fire Department and the State Bureau of Investigations looked for the cause of the fire, but signs of the fire were visible from outside the building.

Holmes said the school is cooperating with the fire department and SBI as the fire is being investigated, and it was determined that the fire was not intentionally set.

"There's no indication that this was anything other than a natural occurrence," he said. "There are no signs of forced entry, nothing that would indicate suspicious nature for this fire."

Holmes said late Friday the fire most likely started under a dishwashing unit and most of the damage was to a dishwashing unit and to interior walls due to smoke.

The school system hoped to begin cleaning the cafeteria Friday.

"We still expect to operate school on the regular schedule Monday; and if the cafeteria is not usable, we will make arrangements to feed and serve students and staff," he said.

Dustin George can be reached at 252-559-1077 or [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @DustinGeorgeKFP.

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