The fire in the old school building of De Zwerm Primary School in Sint Maarten kept the village awake last night. Around midnight, emergency services were alerted that a fire had broken out and the fire brigade worked until early this morning to extinguish the fire. Now that the fire has been extinguished, local residents, students and teachers from the school come to take a look.
“We always sleep with the bedroom window open and I suddenly smelled smoke. Then I got out of bed very quickly and saw orange from the kitchen window. Yes, then you know it’s wrong,” says a local resident. “There was also a lot of smoke released.”
Eva, who has been at De Zwerm since group 1, also comes to have a look the next morning. “I was woken up by the sirens. My father then said there was a big fire,” she says. She hopes the school will reopen soon. “I don’t really like this that much.”
Emergency building not on fire
It is now clear that the fire has burned down the entire old building of De Zwerm Primary School and a crane is busy demolishing the last part. It is not yet clear how the fire started. Miraculously, the emergency building next door, where the students have been attending classes since May this year, has been completely spared. “I just went inside for a moment and there is no smoke damage, no smell, everything is still intact,” says school director Marscha Lemckert – de Graaf.