Restoring St Andrews School following devastating fire

Hein Hemke, Managing Director of BELFOR UK – the leading disaster recovery firm – shares how the firm transformed a fire damaged school just in time for a new academic year.

In May 2022, fire crews were called to a St Andrews Church of England School in Great Linford, Milton Keynes after a fire broke out during a cooking demonstration.

Students were evacuated and firefighters used breathing equipment, thermal imaging equipment, positive pressure ventilation and hose reels to put the fire out.

The classroom in the single storey building, where the fire started, suffered significant smoke and fire damage. But that wasn’t the only damage. Contamination from the fire affected most areas of the school.

The challenge

Beyond the classroom itself, extensive soot damage affected all rooms of the school property, with heavy levels of contamination throughout. Although there was very little thermal damage from the fire itself, the contamination levels were severe, permeating every corner of the school.

A restoration of this site was a significant undertaking. A school building, where young children attend every day to learn and thrive, needed to be handled carefully to ensure harmful contaminants were removed safely.

The school needed to be ready for a September opening, so the timelines were tight. We would need constant communication between our teams to make sure we could provide a safe and clean learning environment for the children to return to. 

The solution

Triage and salvage

The BELFOR UK restoration team got to work immediately to triage the different areas, assessing damage and moving items that could be saved into less affected areas of the school.

We packed up the items that could be saved and sent them off to our specialist cleaning facility. We also inventoried and disposed of anything that was too damaged to salvage.

Decontamination / restoration

Once the triage stage was complete, our team got started with decontamination works, including:

• Soot sponging to remove as much of the loose soot as possible
• Wet cleaning of the walls to remove the tougher contaminants
• Cleaning all UPVCs, tiles, doors, and flooring
• Stain blocking to prevent any residual odors and discoloration from resurfacing
• Reinstatement

Once the Decontamination Team had the building fully prepped and ready, our Reinstatement Team came in to begin work on the final stage of the restoration process. We co-ordinated a seamless handover to our trusted network of trades contractors. We brought in:

• Electricians
• Plumbers
• Carpenters
• Carpet fitters
• Painting and decorating teams

We carried out a full redecoration of the building, fitting bespoke carpets and other flooring. We also installed new kitchens and hung suspended ceilings.

The result

Thanks to strong communication between our departments, the restoration project was a resounding success.  We completely decontaminated and restored the school ready for the new term to start in September.

This was only achievable thanks to the great collaboration between our teams. The fact that we can offer a full end-to-end service on projects removes any potential friction caused by juggling multiple contractors.

It was a great feeling for us to be able to walk back into that school at the end of the project and see it completely restored, giving the pupils and teachers a safe environment for the new academic year. Any visitors to the school now would never know there had been a fire. Exactly how a restoration project should be left.

Executive head teacher, Emma Wallace said:

“I’m delighted with the way the team at BELFOR have supported us. They were here, starting work the very next day after the fire. We’ve had the same site manager throughout the entire project. He has been here every day. We haven’t been passed from person to person. He has given us time and really listened to our concerns at every step. We’d definitely work with them again.”