A fire damaged around 100 of the 160 solar panels on the roof of Don Bosco school in Halle, Belgium. Firefighters quickly extinguished the blaze, and no injuries were reported.
Firefighters in Flemish Brabant, Belgium, extinguished a roof fire at Don Bosco school in Halle.
“The fire was quickly controlled and extinguished,” Brandweerzone Vlaams-Brabant West said in a Facebook statement. “There were no students in the building. No one was hurt.”
Local media outlet HLN reported that the roof had about 160 solar panels, with around 100 destroyed in the fire. The blaze also produced a large column of black smoke, reportedly caused by burning roofing materials underneath.
“It is not the PV panels that create all that smoke,” PV fire safety expert Grunde Jomas told pv magazine. “We always recommend that the entire system, including the roof materials, is tested before it is placed on a roof, whether it is a renovation project or a new construction.”
“From the pictures, it seems that the damage to the building was mostly limited to the roof,” Reidar Stølen from Norway's RISE Fire Research AS told pv magazine. “Of course, more details on the damage to the roof construction, as well as smoke and water damage would need to be assessed in more detail than the pictures allow.”
“I am glad to hear that the firefighters were able to quickly suppress and extinguish the fire,” he went on to say. “I hope they also were prepared and able to work safely on the roof with the potentially dangerous electric voltage present in the PV installation. From the pictures, it seems that the roof had a good space around the PV installation and also an access path from the window near the PV installation.”
According to Stølen, the column of smoke is very dense, which makes it difficult to see the size of the flames. “It would be interesting to get more details on the fuel on the roof and which materials contributed to the dense black smoke,” he stated. “Additional details from the fire would be interesting to be able to assess why the consequences of this fire became what they are now. This can be used to learn how future fires in roofs with PV installations can end up with as low consequences as possible.“
Belgian TV channel VRT reported that Halle Mayor Eva Demesmaeker said the damage still needs assessment, but the flames did not reach the buildings.
“We assume that a technical defect in one of the solar panels caused the fire,” said the head of Brandweerzone Vlaams-Brabant West, Wouter Jeanfils, according to VRT.
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