Oily rag fire 'human error,' says F.H. Collins school building contractor

The contractor building Whitehorse's new F.H. Collins high school said a July fire inside the building was due to "human error."

The fire started early in the morning on July 22 in a bag of oily rags, fire inspectors found. Workers had been varnishing the new gymnasium floor, and left their used rags in a garbage bag inside an equipment room. The rags spontaneously combusted, the inspector's report said.

It's common protocol for building contractors to make sure that oil-soaked rags and materials are never stored inside.

"Unfortunately, human beings make mistakes," said Brad McCabe of Clark Builders, the general contractor building the new school. The gym floor was built by a subcontractor, Cascadia Sport Systems.

"They had a very good crew on site, and from what I could see, the crew had put the rags in the bag and simply forgot to take it out with them when they left the job site," McCabe said.

No lawsuit

Most of the damage was from the sprinkler system that doused the fire. McCabe said it cost about $60,000 to $70,000 to clean it all up.

"We totally re-did that entire room, with fixtures and flooring, you name it," McCabe said. He said there are no plans to sue Cascadia for those costs. "We will work it out internally," he said.

Mal Paterson, a manager with Cascadia, agrees that the fire never should have happened.

"We do have those safety protocols already in place, it was just not followed," Paterson said. "Now it's been reinforced. It can't happen again."