The Bainbridge Island Fire Department board of commissioners learned about a small commercial fire at Bainbridge High School in late September as part of its Oct. 7 meeting.

At around 9:30 a.m. Sept. 26, Engine 21 and Battalion 21 were both dispatched and responded to the scene in less than five minutes. Once arriving on scene, crews found out there had been a small fire in a chemistry lab in a recycling bin, BIFD fire chief Jared Moravec said.

The fire was extinguished by a dry chemical fire extinguisher and no injuries were reported, Moravec said.

“Basically, what our crews did, other than investigate that part, was they went back in just to make sure the fire was out and secure the classroom. Obviously, there’s personal belongings in the classroom that they removed for staff and students,” he said.

Moravec said he has been in contact with the Kitsap County Fire Marshal’s Office about the incident.

“They’ve been in communication with the school district…There was a broken fire extinguisher bracket, and the staff there had secured it with some wire. And so when the fire happened, it took a little bit of extra time to undo that wire,” he said.

The incident lasted no more than two minutes and was extinguished by BISD staff prior to the arrival of BIFD, district superintendent Amii Thompson said.

“BIFD’s statement regarding a slight delay is in reference to the classroom teacher removing a piece of wire used to help secure the fire extinguisher to its holder. The duration of this attempted reinforcement of the bracket is unknown, but suspected to have been in place for up to two weeks prior to the incident,” she said. BISD completed visual and functional inspections of all science classroom fire extinguishers Sept. 26, Thompson said.

BHS evacuated the building for roughly 90 minutes, and BIFD crew members spoke with the chemistry lab teacher about the cause of the fire, which crews later determined was attributed to an experiment that had gone wrong, as sodium hydroxide and zinc had mixed together and created hydrogen gas, which is flammable.

Moravec said it wasn’t a major hazard, but because it occurred in a classroom at a school, they would allow 24 hours of passive ventilation to happen. BIFD inspects BISD fire extinguishers annually and didn’t find any deficiencies in their most recent inspection a few months ago, Moravec said.