Collection of Lights in Boy’s Room Blamed in Dorm Blaze

A fire that destroyed a dormitory at a private boarding school near Ojai began in a boy’s room that was strewn with 1,000 twinkling Christmas lights, flood lamps and electronic equipment, a fire investigator said Friday.

The lights started a blaze Wednesday morning that caused $550,000 in damage to the Happy Valley School about three miles east of Ojai, said Peter Cronk, fire investigator with the Ventura County Fire Department.

Cronk said the fire began when overloaded circuits created a short in electrical wiring or when a cloth draped over a flood light dried out and ignited.

“With the amount of damage there was, we’ll never know for sure,” Cronk said. “But the kid was into light. There is no doubt in my mind that that’s what caused the fire.”

Cronk said the 15-year-old boy, Kenny Irwin of Palm Springs, also kept six stereos, a small fan, a computer and a printer in his room.

Fellow student Ian Anderson, who lives in a nearby house with his parents, said Kenny had draped the strings of lights around his bed and over artwork that hung on the walls.

“They were all flashing and it just looked kind of Christmasy,” Ian said. “He likes lights and stuff.”

Cronk said it was unclear from his conversations with Kenny whether the lights were on when the fire began.

“He told me he turned them off every time he left the room,” Cronk said. “But when I asked him how many switches he turned off or where they were, he didn’t know. That tells me he wasn’t turning them off.”

Kenny had returned to his home in Palm Springs and could not be reached for comment.

But school Director Dennis Rice said the number of lights and pieces of electronic equipment that were in the room had been overestimated.

“We know he had a fan, a small stereo and his computer on that outlet, but there’s no way he had six stereos in that room,” Rice said. “He did have a lot of tiny lights around his bed and glued onto his paintings and things, but we wouldn’t allow him to hook them up.”

The fire in the 14-room dormitory, one of three on the property, began at 7:30 a.m. Wednesday as most of the students had gone to breakfast. No one was injured in the fire, which took an hour and 15 minutes to control, but all the students’ belongings were destroyed.

School officials said the flat-roofed, single-story dormitory was built in 1972. It was equipped with smoke alarms, but no sprinklers, officials said.

The exclusive school has 77 American and foreign students.

Cronk said the fire could have been prevented if school officials had more carefully monitored what Kenny kept in his room. But Rice said that dormitory counselors inspect the rooms daily to make sure that rooms are clean and tidy.

Ventura County fire safety officers from the Upper Ojai station said they performed a routine annual inspection at the school last July and found no safety code violations.

Firefighter Vernon Peterson said all of the buildings on the 500-acre school grounds are well maintained.

“They are very conscientious about what we suggest for fire safety when we come,” he said. “But kids will be kids. We can’t be responsible with regard to what happens after we leave.”