Marvin Smith’s hunger pangs came at an opportune time Monday night.
When Smith went to retrieve a sandwich he had left in a refrigerator in the home economics classroom in Iola High School’s science building, he noticed smoke coming from a clothes dryer.
The smoldering towels
in the dryer broke into flames when Smith opened the door and exposed them to air. The fire was quickly extinguished.
The incident occurred near the end of a Board of Education meeting, which had Dr. Craig Neuenswan-der, superintendent of schools, on the scene immediately.
“There was a lot of smoke in the room and some odor elsewhere in the building,” which includes the district cafeteria and kitchen, Neuenswander said, “but no fire damage except to
the dryer.”
Exhaust fans were set up to draw smoke and an acrid smell from the building, and damage will be assessed more thoroughly today. Two custodians involved in cleanup said
the fumes were strong enough that their eyes burned.
No one was certain how the towels came to be left
in the dryer late in the evening, or who put them there.
“Jonet Bland (family and consumer science instructor) said they dried some things earlier, but she knew they were removed and folded before she left the building,” Neuenswander said.
Smith, a science instructor and IHS track coach, had just returned from a track meet when he went
to retreive his snack.
Fire averted by ‘midnight snack’
