By Ian Holmes

Minor damage caused by fire at Kwalikum Secondary School

Dec 20, 2017 | 4:08 PM

QUALICUM BEACH — A deliberately set fire caused minor damage to Kwalikum Secondary School and sent students home early.

Fire chief Daryle Kohse told NanaimoNewsNOW they got a call Tuesday, Dec 19 at 9:30 a.m. to knock down a small fire in the boys washroom of the school’s main building.

He said a staff member initially helped attack the fire, which was ignited by toilet paper.

“Our crews went in there and finished it off and ended up with minor soot damage around the receptacles in the washroom and some smoke damage that came out and perpetrated into the front foyer.”

Kohse said students were evacuated from the school to the adjacent field then the call was made to send them home to allow the school to be ventilated.

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Kohse said a surveillance camera in the area didn’t capture what happened.

He said incidents like this needlessly tie up resources and inconveniences lots of people.

“It does effect the responders that are coming to the scene as well as staff and students at the school, especially with the weather conditions that we’ve been experiencing over the last couple days.”

Meantime, a bomb threat scrawled on the side of Cilaire Elementary School temporarily evacuated students and staff from the Central Nanaimo school Wednesday.

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