Burn, Baby, Burn!

For some children, it is only a dream; to show up one day and have school cancelled for a month because the school burned down. At Bishop Reindorp, this dream came true on November 11, 2002. At about 7:00 pm, a fire was started a school washroom by parties unknown which resulted in about 1 million pounds damage to the school property. While firefighters were trying feverishly to put the blaze out, students from the school were trying to disconnect the firehoses. Other students were jumping up and down shouting, " I did it, I did it!". The school fire took place a mere 24 hours before a scheduled strike by area firefighters.

The fire at Bishop Reindorp has meant that students have had an extra two weeks off school as power and heat were restored to the remaining buildings. Classes had to be re-arranged, and portable classrooms had to be brought in to accomodate all of the classrooms that had been destroyed. The school kitchen had been reduced to ashes and the future months shows little hope for anything other than cold sandwiches for school lunches. The school computer network suffered a major blow with server and line damage and is not expected to be up and running until the beginning of the next school term in January.