LITTLE ROCK — Welders working on an addition to White Hall High School likely sparked a fire that damaged the building early Friday afternoon, the chief of the White Hall Volunteer Fire Department said.
The fire started after 1 p.m. when insulation ignited as crews worked on a second story addition to part of the facility.
Chief Sandy Castleberry said the existing roof of that wing was burnt and some of the steel beams erected for the expansion melted. Some of the existing classrooms also suffered water damage as firefighters doused the flames, he said.
Larry Smith, superintendent of the White Hall School District, said the damage has slowed the new construction effort, but that the addition was not scheduled to open this school year anyway.
Existing rooms underneath the new floor were to be in use when classes resume next month, and that likely won't occur. New steel beams will have to be installed and Smith said school officials don't want to have students in classrooms underneath that process.
"We'll have to move those kids," he said. "But we did that in the spring and it wasn't a major ordeal. We'll just move them to other parts of the building."
All in all, the fire appears to be more of a "nuisance" than a major problem, Smith said, though he noted a structural engineer and an insurance adjuster still need to visit the facility.
"At the end of the day, it looked a lot worse and sounded a lot worse than it was," he said. "But it is going so slow us down."