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Officials: DPW checks uncovered small fires at vacant Winter Hill School; door alarm error since fixed
Summary
At a June 10 joint meeting, officials said Department of Public Works staff found small, smoldering fires in the closed Winter Hill School after daily checks triggered by a door-alarm communication error; the alarm was repaired May 13 and the fire department confirmed the incidents did not trip the building's heat-based alarm system.
At a June 10 joint meeting of the Somerville City Council special committee on school building facilities and maintenance and the School Committee subcommittee, Commissioner Jill Lathan said Department of Public Works staff discovered small smoldering fires inside the closed Winter Hill School on May 12 while performing daily checks prompted by a door-alarm communication error that began May 9.
The finding led custodians to extinguish pocket fires with handheld extinguishers and to summon the Somerville Fire Department. "If it was not for DPW doing these . . . frequent checks because of the door alarm issue, this could have been a much larger and significantly worse situation," Commissioner Jill Lathan said.
Fire Chief Charlie Breen told the committee the school’s fire detection system uses heat detectors, not smoke detectors, and the small, vandalism-sized fires did not generate enough heat to trigger the alarm. "The system is functioning; however, the size of the fires in the building did not rise to the level to trip the alarm," Chief Breen said.
Lathan and other officials said the door-alarm communication error was reported May 9; IT and Verizon were engaged to restore communications, and the door logs and alarm communications were restored May 13. Officials said DPW has been conducting frequent physical checks of closed school buildings even when alarms are being repaired.
Committee members asked about the school department's limited, storage-only use of parts of the Winter Hill building for food-service supplies. Director of Infrastructure and Asset Management Richard Raich said a new production kitchen at the Argenziano facility is scheduled to come online this summer, and food-service storage access to Winter Hill is expected to stop in late June or early July when remaining items move.
The subcommittees concluded the Winter Hill update and, by unanimous consent, marked the item complete for the meeting.
The committee did not take any further formal policy action on the building’s future at the June 10 meeting; school staff reiterated that some closed buildings (for example the 1895 building) remain explicitly unsafe for occupancy and require separate remediation before reoccupation.
