Firefighter Injured at Old School

An Orange firefighter was injured Saturday when he fell through the roof of an abandoned school building believed to have been set ablaze by juveniles who frequent the campus.

The firefighter, whose name was not immediately released, suffered minor burns and cuts to his neck when he and 31 other firefighters were putting out a three-alarm fire at Peralta Junior High School. He was rushed to UCI Medical Center in Orange and hospitalized in good condition.

“I saw his helmet disappear . . . and then a moment later it came back up,” Orange Fire Capt. Dave Smith said. “He caught himself or he hit something solid on the way down.”

Scores of residents and shoppers from the nearby Mall of Orange watched as columns of smoke billowed from the school site at 2190 N. Canal St.

Witnesses said they saw youths “leave the area right around the time of the fire,” Smith said.

The Orange School District boarded up the Peralta classrooms in 1985 after enrollment fell to 480. The school had a record 1,600 students when it opened in 1963.

The campus recreational facilities are still open to the public, Smith said, so the campus is a popular hangout for youths who live nearby.

“There is no power in the building, so that rules out an electrical fire,” he said. “We’re looking more at the possibility that kids were just hanging out. They might have been smoking, or it might have been an accident.”

As firefighters from Orange, Anaheim and the county worked feverishly to put out the blaze, several youths continued to play basketball, handball, baseball and hockey about 50 yards away.

The fire started about 5 p.m. in a rectangular building that once housed 10 classrooms, Smith said.

Firefighters entered the classroom to try to prevent the blaze from spreading. But flames entered a ventilation duct in the ceiling, causing the fire to spread to at least four other classrooms.

Firefighters needed 45 minutes to control the blaze and another 30 minutes to put it out, Smith said.

One classroom had heavy damage, four received minor damage and at least five others had smoke damage, Smith said.

A man who lives near the school said he often sees “kids messing around in there. They’re always banging doors and hanging out.”