Evacuation alarms and small fire lead to student arrest

Students walk towards the field during the evacuation notice (Myiah Lucio, The Puma Prensa)

By Georgia Laganiere, editor

As thick smoke billowed through and above the J building at Maria Carrillo High School, an evacuation alarm sounded and students in their fifth period classes evacuated to the football field at 2:33 p.m. on Thursday Feb. 23. By 2:40 p.m., Principal Monique Luke sent an email through ParentSquare to MCHS parents, teachers, and students that there was a fire in the yard of the scene shop at the back of the theater building. 

First alerted by campus supervisor Sam Bruno, Denise Elia-Yen said she “threw [him a] fire extinguisher… and kept getting as many as we had.” “There was an assembly line of fire extinguishers,” said Elia-Yen. She then instructed her class to evacuate, but she noted that the alarm was muted from her classroom as she couldn’t hear it clearly. Elia-Yen said she was glad that staff had such a good reaction time, because “it could have been much worse.”

At 6:23 p.m., Luke sent out another ParentSquare email saying “a couple of students decided to jump a fence behind the Art Building during 6th period on campus.” Thursday Feb. 23 was a 1-3-5 day, so the email refers to events that happened during fifth period. She wrote that one of the students lit a leaf on fire and put it into an unplugged refrigerator in an attempt to “take the oxygen out of the fire.” These same students then “ran to the office for help,” according to the email. The Press Democrat later reported that the student who set the fire was arrested and booked into Sonoma County Juvenile Hall that night. 

Because of the incident on Wednesday Feb. 15 in which several police officers responded to the MCHS campus to investigate a potential threat that turned out to be a hoax affecting more than one area school, this unanticipated alarm was startling for some. Senior Finn Robertson said, “After the ordeal with the lockdown, I was terrified that someone had pulled the alarm intentionally. This was pretty scary for me.” 

Contributors: Rosemary Cromwell, editor and Jon Donohue, editor