$150,000 Fire in School Offices Destroys Students’ Records

A fire swept through the offices of a Granada Hills junior high school Tuesday, causing an estimated $150,000 damage, the loss of student records and a delay in classes, authorities said. There were no injuries.

The fire left administrators at George K. Porter Junior High School scrambling to find new office space on the campus in the 15900 block of Kingsbury Street and replacement records for most of the school’s 1,350 students.

“Luckily, we think we have backup for most of the records, but it will take hundreds of hours to rebuild the students’ files,” said Principal Martin Pattee as he surveyed the damage to the school’s administration wing.

The fire was reported about 4:20 a.m., said Los Angeles Fire Department spokesman Pat Marek. The blaze appeared to have started in the school’s counseling center, where student files are located, and spread to offices of two assistant principals, the health and attendance offices and a computer room, authorities said.

Inspector Ed Reed said the cause of the fire was still under investigation. Pattee said arson investigators were at the scene throughout the morning and had said the cause was suspicious.

Shortly after 20 firefighters extinguished the blaze, a water pipe broke in the ceiling of the administrative wing. The front office, which had not been fire damaged, was flooded until water to the school was turned off, said Rich Mendoza, plant manager at the school.

Following a school district policy of not allowing classes in a school where there is no water, classes were delayed at Porter for about an hour until the pipe break was capped and water turned back on, Pattee said.

He said $15,000 worth of computers were destroyed but backup computer disks containing many student records were housed in a fireproof box and appeared to have survived the fire. Still, complete records of students’ academic careers will have to be pieced together.

“We just have to scrape around and see what data exists,” said Assistant Principal Betty White, director of counseling and guidance at the school.

White said the Los Angeles school district will have students’ grade records from prior schools but other individual information pertaining to counseling or focus of study may be completely lost. “We’ll have to start from scratch,” she said.

Pattee estimated that it could take more than a year before the school is repaired and returns to normal.