Any size fire is enough to interrupt operations at an educational facility. It’s how to recover from the fire in a timely fashion that often proves to be challenging. After a minor fire occurred at the Sierra House Elementary School in South Lake Tahoe, Calif., in November 2018, officials knew proper cleanup and remediation efforts would be required to return the building to normal operation.

The Lake Tahoe Unified School District (LTUSD), of which the elementary school is a part, took immediate action by securing qualified assessment and remediation professionals to conduct proactive soot cleaning in undamaged areas of the school, as well as air testing to determine whether it was safe for students to return to the building. Encouraging air sample test results led to the decision to allow students to return to an improvisational but functioning school within a few weeks of the initial fire.