BELLINGHAM—
Bellingham school officials are looking for classrooms for 580 Whatcom Middle School students whose historic building was gutted Thursday by a three-alarm fire.Even some of the firefighters who fought the flames went to school there.
So it's not hard to understand why the fire is such a loss for folks in Bellingham.
The building is so damaged it could be two weeks before anyone will be able to go inside.
Now the school district has cancelled classes for the next week while it searches for other places for the kids to go to school.
Flames 30 feet high lit up the sky when the fire broke out in the early hours of this morning.
Whatcom Middle School, built in 1904, was burning.
"I just woke up this morning," said Quinn Carpenter, a 7th grader at the school, "and my parents tell me my school's on fire. I look. I see the pictures on the computer -- and it's just insane. There's so much history in this school."
The fire started near the roof at the south end of the school.
But winds gusting up to 50 miles an hour pushed it north.
Ladder trucks had to stretch to their limits as firefighters struggled to get water where it was needed.
"It's up on the roofs. You got elevations. You got the wind. And, you know, the best way to put out a fire is, typically, to go inside and put it out," said Assistant Fire Chief Andy Day, "so we've been thwarted in that respect."
As the smoke cleared, families were left to wonder what was next for the 580 students here.
James Walsh teaches Special Education to 25 students here. In a voice choked with emotion, he tells how he lost a lot more than just a classroom.
"I have systems and programs and staff and things put together for my kids. And it's hard."
It's a hard loss of a century of Bellingham history.
Investigators have not said what started the fire.
While Whatcom Middle School will stay closed, all other Bellingham schools will remain open on their regular schedules.
