OLA, Idaho — The Paddock Fire came dangerously close to Ola's two room schoolhouse. But this schoolhouse has a tool that helps fight fires.
- The Paddock Fire came so close to Ola it melted fences along the road into town.
- The over 100-year-old schoolhouse is an official NOAA weather reporting station, empowering students to get involved with gathering current weather information.
(Below is the transcript from the broadcast story)
The Paddock fire was one of the largest fires in Southwest Idaho so far burning around 200 thousand acres, in three different counties. It came so close to Ola it melted fences along the road into town.
To show you how close the Paddock Fire was to delaying the start of school in Ola? The burnt-out hillside that came all the way down just about a mile away from the schoolhouse.
I asked Head teacher Amy Davis this.
"How concerned were you for your back-to-school plans that put some things on hold? First of all some of our families were evacuated some parents were out fighting we were given the evacuation orders and we had firefighters needed to be fed so everything was chaotic for a day and things smoothed but out families I was concerned how quickly our families could come back and be able to focus."
Here's where new technology helps old technology. The over 100-year-old schoolhouse is an official N.O.A.A. weather reporting station. Davis explains.
"They already had the station set up and this tells them the dew point how much moisture is in the air, how much precipitation wind speed what they do at night in the morning, and they could use that to put their resources on the fire."
And the older kids play a big in this.
"They come out here and they open this box, and this right here tells us the current temperature, and then also then they find the max and min of the last 24 hours, and then on weekends they get the history of what happened over the weekend.
The Paddock fire did bring out the best in everyone.
"And this community always comes together, whether it's a fire or a schoolhouse we always comes together."
