Harrisburg Fire Chief Brian Enterline and school district Superintendent Eric Turman spoke to the press on Monday at city hall.
A serious early-morning arson fire at the former William Penn High School has not lessened the school district’s hope of formulating a long-term plan for the future of the building.
On Monday morning, district Superintendent Eric Turman said that the William Penn task force will continue to meet as scheduled, with the expectation that it will release a report next year on future plans for the long-shuttered building.
“We have another task force meeting in January,” he said. “During that time, the administration and the task force will come up with a possible way to move forward.”
The 26-member task force began meeting in October. District Receiver Dr. Lori Suski appointed the temporary body following community uproar to a previous plan to raze the 98-year-old building.
At about 6:15 a.m. on Monday, the Harrisburg Fire Bureau responded to a call of a fire on the north side of the sprawling building, near the former football field. According to Fire Chief Brian Enterline, the fire was purposely set. It took the bureau about 2½ hours to bring the blaze under control, and firefighters still were extinguishing hot spots throughout the day.
In addition, the district cancelled classes at the nearby Camp Curtin campus due to heavy smoke from the fire, which infiltrated those school buildings. Turman said that he hoped classes there would resume tomorrow.
The fire broke out in the former auto mechanics repair shop portion of William Penn. The school, originally built as a high school, was used a vocational school for years before its permanent closure in 2011.
Since then, the school has been the site of many break-ins, acts of vandalism and arson fires. Most of the fires have been minor, but Enterline said that this fire was serious due to all the debris that had never been removed from the building after it closed.
He said that he was considering issuing an emergency decree to have the building cleaned out. He added that, seven or eight years ago, he asked the district to remove everything from the building, but that was never done.
“There are literally tons, thousands of tons, of debris inside that building that need to be taken out,” he said. “If we get that done through an emergency order, we eliminate the potential for any death or injury from a fire at the William Penn campus.”
Enterline said that the district had taken measures to seal up the building, but that there are limitations to how effective any barriers could be.
“The school district has done everything that they can to keep people out,” he said. “The problem is that nefarious residents want to keep going into this building and wreaking havoc on the fire department and the neighbors.”
Enterline implored residents to contact the city police if they know who was responsible for the fire.
“If you know these kids who are going in there, please call down to the Harrisburg police department, so we can bring them in and talk to them,” he said. “We don’t want anyone to be killed. I don’t want to pull anybody out of that building in a body bag.”
Turman said that the fire did not dent his optimism that the administration and the task force can agree on a plan to bring William Penn back as a usable facility.
“We all really want to see something at William Penn, which will have a great impact on the students,” he said.
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