A fireman wets his hands to wipe his eyes after they were irritated by heavy smoke during a fire at Kingston Technical High School in Kingston yesterday. - Norman Grindley/Acting Photography Editor

Black smoke crept through broken window panes at the Kingston Technical High School yesterday afternoon, just minutes after school was dismissed.

When The Gleaner arrived, approximately 15 minutes after the fire started, students lined the streets just outside the school compound, looking on at the smoke.

The smoke was coming from a storage room on the top floor of a section of the school's buildings.

The room, which is at the end of a stairway, houses mostly old computers and other defective equipment.

Alerted by the smoke, teachers and administrators had started to put out the fire with extinguishers before the firemen arrived.

When the firemen got to the scene, it took just five minutes to completely extinguish the flames.

District Officer James Blake, from the Rollington Town Fire Station, told The Gleaner that the blaze was not a major threat because it was contained to one concrete room.

The officer said that from his observations, he saw no sign of electrical outlets.

To ascertain the cause of the fire, Blake said further investigations would have to be carried out.

Hideout for students

A senior member of staff told The Gleaner that the room, which is a restricted area for students, is usually forced into and used as a hideout for students to smoke.

Today, a student was dismissed for repeatedly breaching the school's code of conduct.

On the first day of the new school year, students were engaged in a fight outside the school's compound.