Fire hits Heritage High School

Heritage High students were surprised to find that the fire drill that usually goes off as a warning was indeed real. The vocational building, used to store fertilizer used on the school’s athletic fields, had flames coming out of the top of the building when firefighters arrived. Nearly 100 students were evacuated from the vocational building near by. The students were there for a Future Farmers of America district competition when the fire alarm sounded around 7:00 p.m. Firefighters immediately put out the burning building while black smoke billowed from the structure. They also worked to keep cool a 500-gallon propane tank near the building to reduce the possibility of an explosion. The smoke had the potential to be toxic due to the fertilizer that was burning in the building. Blount County Sheriff’s deputies kept students and staff back from the building to prevent them from breathing in the smoke. The storage building was destroyed in the blaze. Blount County arson investigators are investigating the cause of the fire. At press time the cause is still unknown.