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Suspected arson attack causes major blaze at former York school

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The scene at the old Manor School early on Thursday. Photograph: PC Ben Stevens on Twitter. Click to see a bigger image

Firefighters battled a major blaze at a former York school on Thursday morning (February 12) – and the cause is thought to be arson.

They were called to the old Manor School site on Low Poppleton Lane, at 1.43am and found the building well alight.

Firefighters from York, Acomb, Huntington and Selby fought the fire in a two storey building.

They use the ariel ladder platform from Huntington a water tower as well as two large jets and two hose reel jets to bring the fire under control. It took two and a half hours to extinguish the flames.

The building is partly used as offices and a fire spokesperson said it is believed the cause of fire was deliberate.

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The old Manor School site. Photograph: Bing Maps
By daylight only one appliance from Acomb remained at the scene carrying out a watching brief. Fire investigation officers are due back at the scene to begin their investigation.

Nursery affected

The Muddy Boots Nursery operates from an adjoining building, and had to close for the rest of the week.

Staff told parents that the fire was not directly in the nursery but “it has caused quite a lot of damage to some of the nursery rooms mainly due to flooding, therefore we have had to close nursery until the weekend”.

The statement added:

We are working around the clock to hopefully open again on Monday morning. We are so sincerely sorry for the inconvenience to parents – closing the nursery is our absolute last resort but of course we have to put the safety of the children first.