‘It was shocking’: Robotics team at North Shore school jump into action to extinguish indoor blaze

WEST NEWBURY, Mass. — The robotics team at Pentucket Regional Middle High school was busy working on their new robot Saturday when a fire broke out inside the school.

“We had smelled the smoke for like maybe an hour beforehand we didn’t really think anything of it because it’s just what wood smells like when you cut it,” said Kaleb Sands, a senior on the robotics team.

The theater team had been cutting wood for stage production inside the auditorium, and that’s where the fire broke out.

“It was shocking, it’s one of those things you never really prepare for like walking into the next room and seeing a fire indoors,” said Mo Elhelw, engineering and robotics teacher at Pentucket.

Elhelw says the fire was waist high and about 10 feet in diameter.

Investigators believe sawdust was smoldering before igniting the fire in a trash barrel.

“It was a pretty surreal feeling, I never really thought that I’d experience something like that in person, you know you’ve seen it in movies and videos but it’s a whole different feeling when you’re there,” said Sands.

These students jumped into action and helped their mentors find the fire extinguishers to put the flames out.

“We walk this building every day so we kind of knew where they all were, we grabbed 5 fire extinguishers brought them to the mentors and they rushed us right out of the building,” said Sands.

Students were evacuated as first responders arrived.

Now after school was closed Monday and Tuesday, most of the building has been cleared to reopen after a thorough cleaning and inspection.

School leaders say if it wasn’t for the help of the robotics team, this could have been so much worse.

“It’s inspiring to see students really step up and be ready to help out, but that’s absolutely the kind of energy we try to foster in our students,” said Elhelw. “Our robotics program is so much more than teaching kids engineering skills – just like scouts we’re trying to teach them how to be upstanding citizens who are always ready to deal with whatever may come.”

While school will reopen on Wednesday, the auditorium will remain sealed off as crews continue to clean up the damage from this fire.

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