“It burned through the ceiling and down the wall. There’s quite a bit of smoke and water damage with the books and carpet in the library.”
No one was at the school at the time but the alarm system alerted fire services, she said.
The library is in a separate building from the main school block.
Most of the damage was repairable but Drake said if the fire had lasted longer it “could have been a whole different story”.
She said it was lucky the fire brigade was “not far down the road” and was very quick to the scene.
“They were amazing, we were really impressed.”
The call escalated to a higher alarm with crews from Hāwera, Eltham, Ngaio and New Plymouth being asked to respond.
Most crews were stood down before reaching the scene but the Hāwera Brigade extinguished the small fire, Dalton said.
“They thought it was a bit bigger than it was but it turned out to be a smaller fire.”
The school now faces a library clean-up job with some of the collection of books wrecked.
“There are books on the shelves that, if they dry out, are going to be wrinkly, horrible books so we’ll see what happens with that ... which is sad,” Drake said.
Drake said the Ministry of Education was sending assessors to determine the extent of the damage to the library.
Eva de Jong is a reporter for the Whanganui Chronicle covering health stories and general news. She began as a reporter in 2023.
