Fairview High School students and staff were briefly evacuated yesterday “after someone reported a strong chemical smell coming from one of the bathrooms,” according to Boulder Valley School District's chief communications officer, Randy Barber.
At first, Barber said that it appeared someone had burnt something in the bathroom. The school’s facilities team immediately responded to the issue and investigated the cause of the smell. Barber said that the team determined that someone had “tampered with a lithium battery and it caught fire.” There was no damage to the school, Barber said.
The school’s facilities team purged the air from the school and cleaned the bathroom. The fire department quickly cleared the building for reentry and classes resumed yesterday afternoon. No one was injured, according to Barber, and normal operations have resumed at the school.
It has not been specified if the school is aware of who tampered with the battery or why, or what kind of device the battery was used for.
