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SPRINGVILLE — Students were evacuated from a building at Springville High School when a mobile computer cart caught on fire Wednesday morning.
According to the Nebo school district, shortly before 6:11 a.m., a laptop battery overheated, sparking the flames in a science lab at the school, located at 1205 E. 900 South.
Fortunately the fire alarm went off alerting a custodian and the fire department before the fire got out of control.
"It was isolated to the cabinet area of the computers, and a little bit of scorching on the walls on the inside," said Springville Fire Department Chief Henry Clinton.
Students were moved out of that building into the gym while firefighters put out the flames and cleared smoke.
"It was so fortunate that this happened early this morning, after 6:00 a.m., because we did have a custodian here and we had people involved and the phone calls went out quickly," said Lana Hiskey, Nebo School District spokesperson. Had the battery overheated during the night the fire could have been much worse.
The fire ruined 20 laptops and 10 laptop batteries. No injuries were reported.
But, despite the scare, school will continue as normal for the day.
"Our parent link sent out a message to all students that attend here and told them school will be as normal, come in," Hiskey said.
Students stood outside Springville High after the incident joking about what they call the "Springville curse"
This will be the second time the school will have to replace computers. Two years ago, surveillance video caught teens breaking into the school and stealing 13 iMac's. Four local teens were arrested in that case and students still talk about it.
"We have a curse, a senior curse, Springville High curse, just in general," said one student, Ashley Couchis.
"I wonder what is going to happen next year," said another named Melissa.
School officials estimate that the price tag on this latest incident involving the laptops is at least $10,000, a lot of money for a school that's already replaced computers once recently.
"It's a concern when you have 20 laptops at 500 dollars apiece," Hiskey said.
Hiskey also said fortunately the laptops are insured.
