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SANDY — Sandy Elementary School will be closed Thursday because of a small fire that started in one of the classrooms Wednesday afternoon.
Everyone was able to get out of the building safely and no injuries were reported in the incident at 8725 S. 208 East, according to Canyons School District spokesman Jeffrey Haney.
"We will not be holding school while we assess damages," he said.
Officials will know by Thursday whether or not there will be class on Friday.
A fire alarm alerted school administrators and firefighters to the problem about 2:10 p.m. Sandy Fire Battalion Chief Derek Maxfield said the children and faculty were out of the building when firefighters arrived.
"We made entry and noticed smoke on the first floor," Maxfield said.
Crews traced the source of the smoke to a classroom on the second floor. The fire had already been extinguished by the school's overhead sprinkler system by the time firefighters got inside, he said.
The sprinklers were installed after a fire in 2004 forced students to go to a different school for a year.
How the fire started was still being investigated Wednesday. Maxfield said a preliminary investigation indicated it may have started in a box or a bin on the floor. He wasn't sure Wednesday if it was a type of recycling bin or a trash can.
The fire spread from the box up the wall, he said. The students and teachers were in another classroom when the fire started, Maxfield said.
Although fire and smoke damage was contained to the one classroom, water from the sprinkler seeped down the wall and through the floor to the first floor and the basement. Several classrooms and the library suffered some water damage and still had water that needed to be removed Wednesday afternoon.
"There's a lot of wet carpet," Maxfield said.
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