Firefighters from Lewis County fire districts 6, 5 and 8 keep watch and spray water onto the excavators and bulldozers moving the remains of the Lewis County Adventist School into a huge burn pile today west of Chehalis
By Sharyn L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter
CHEHALIS – It was somewhat like an immense bonfire but flames flared mostly on one side while streams of water from firefighters’ hoses kept the opposite section smoldering as bulldozers took turns pushing the remains of the school into the pile.
Members of three area fire districts took the opportunity to practice today as they assisted the contractor in demolishing the Lewis County Adventist School west of Chehalis.
“Wow, it doesn’t even look like there was a school here now,” said Linda VanPuymbrouck, a Curtis resident who was among a small group of teachers, church members and parents who staked out a birds-eye view from the adjacent hillside.
While the original plan to make room for a new school on the site off of South Scheuber Road included various firefighter training exercises before the entire building would be set ablaze, the fire chief concluded certain construction peculiarities made that approach unsafe.
Less than three hours into the burning, the bulk of the structure was gone, said Lewis County Fire District 6 Chief Bud Goodwillie.
The chief supervised 32 firefighters who got to practice some of the basics, while the contractor Adam Kugel and his crew of three added to the burn pile. They began the demolition last night.
“It was blazing hot, almost unbearably hot,” Kugel said as he came off a shift of nearly an hour inside his excavator.
Firefighters worked in roughly 20-minute shifts keeping streams of water flowing to prevent the equipments’ hydraulic lines from igniting.
Some 60 students from kindergarten through tenth grade will attend classes next year at the Chehalis Seventh-day Adventist Church nearby on Chilvers Road.
The following school year, they should be inside a $3.5 million, new two-story building with the same views of Mount St. Helens, Mount Rainier and Mount Adams, according to church member Bill Hammond, chair of the building committee.
The structure, at 28,000 square-feet will be more than double the size of the former school and will feature a full-sized gym.
Twenty-nine year-old Kugel, who is coordinating the work with another contractor, is an alumni of the private school. He was hot, but pleased as the work was winding down about 1 p.m.
“They still got something good out of it,” he said of the firefighters. “And so far, it’s been good.”
Tags: By Sharyn L. Decker, news reporter