A Century-Old School, A Trash Can And A Five-Alarm Inferno

Firefighters work to extinguish a second fire at Lincoln Avenue Elementary School on July 6. Photo by Urban Milwaukee staff.

Rags and cleaning supplies.

The total loss of Lincoln Avenue Elementary School was triggered when Milwaukee Public Schools cleaning staff disposed of soaked cleaning rags in plastic garbage cans.

“We find that nobody acted with intent or purpose to cause this fire to occur,” said Fire Chief Aaron Lipski at a press conference Monday morning.  “Sadly, as is often the case, there was human error involved.”

Security camera footage, said Lipski, shows staff working to clean the building, including waxing floors, and then placing the rags in plastic garbage cans in hallways. Other material was then placed atop the rags. About a half-hour before a fire alarm was automatically triggered the morning of June 30, smoke could be seen emanating from one of the garbage cans.

The five-alarm fire ultimately required a response from more than 110 firefighters. Milwaukee Fire Department personnel returned to the site multiple times to address hot spots.

“Spontaneous combustion … in layperson’s terms, the cause,” said the chief.

Lipski, during the press conference, repeatedly praised MPS for its cooperation and interest in improving its practices.

“We worked immediately with our facilities team to provide training and updates to our procedures to prevent anything like this from happening again,” said Superintendent Brenda Cassellius. Updates, she said, included mandating disposal of potentially flammable materials in metal containers, prohibiting the use of oil-based chemicals when temperatures exceed 85 degrees, providing metal garbage cans, mandating fire doors be closed at the end of a day and requiring employees to verify that a building is properly closed and secured at the end of a workday.

Cassellius said the district will issue its bid for demolition Monday.

“We received an initial insurance payment last month that will fund the demolition,” she said. The initial payment, she said, was $5 million.

A decision has not been made on the future of the site, but Cassellius promised the district would engage all stakeholders in the determination process.

A new elementary school could cost $50 million.

“We know that losing this building is going to be really hard on this community,” she said. “While this is certainly a unique challenge, it also has shown the incredible resilience of the Lincoln Avenue School community and the broader Milwaukee community.”

Mayor Cavalier Johnson, who attended the school, praised MFD and MPS for their work on what he said is a “travesty.”

The three-story building, 1817 W. Lincoln Ave., was constructed in 1917 and later expanded.

The students and staff will relocate to available space within Casimir Pulaski High School, 2500 W. Oklahoma Ave., for the upcoming school year.

MPS’ $280 million sprinkler problem

Regardless of the cause, Lipski stressed that sprinklers would have made a difference in reducing the impact of the fire. He said it was important to “keep pressure on” to get the district’s buildings sprinklered, but noted Cassellius could not possibly drive that change in just the year and a half she’s held the role.

The cost to install sprinklers could reach $280 million. The superintendent said an initial review identified that it would cost $1 million to $2 million per school to install a full sprinkler system, and the district has 139 buildings.

Cassellius said the average MPS structure is 85 years old. “Many of them have millions of dollars in deferred maintenance,” she said. “This is not unlike many other buildings throughout the state of Wisconsin and many other states. These buildings are just old and beyond their lives.” Paraphrasing an unnamed colleague, she said the structures have become liabilities, not assets.

The district has two buildings with sprinkler systems and 20 with partial sprinkler systems.

Because of their age, the buildings are not required by state law to have sprinkler systems.

Cassellius said a long-range facilities plan is expected to be discussed publicly in the coming years.

“We have to have a conversation with Milwaukee about the types of learning environments we want for our students,” she said.

July 6 Photos

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June 30 Photos

School Photos

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