PUPILS at Okehampton College had to be swiftly evacuated when a fierce fire broke out in a car garage next door to the school earlier today.

With smoke and flames billowing from the roof of the garage on Mill Road, pupils were swiftly evacuated to Simmons Park, on the other side of the school.

The alert went up just after 1pm earlier today, Thursday.

Firefighters were swiftly on the scene and fought billowing smoke and to contain oil which was leeching from cars on fire in the workshop.

There was particular concern that gas canisters could ignite. However crews got canisters of oxygen and propane gas out of the building The fire service said that three vehicles were destroyed in the blaze. No one was injured.

Fire Incident Commander Graham Rooms, from Danes Castle in Exeter, said: ‘This was a significant fire in a commercial workshop which when crews arrived was well developed, with a huge smoke plume, unfortunately right beside the college. Our main consideration was to evacuate the school and that was dealt with by the college themselves while the fire crews got on with fighting the fire.’

Five fire appliances attended, along with two specialised vehicles, including an environmental protection vehicle to deal with the hazard posed by the oil run off.

‘It was quite challenging for the initial crews. They worked very very hard to contain the fire and stop the fire spreading to the adjacent building,’ said Mr Rooms. ‘About 200 litres of oil has come out of the building and we have managed to contain that.’

He added that they had managed to remove propane and oxygen canisters, which there was concern would ignite.

‘At the moment we don’t know how the fire started, we have got the fire investigation unit dealing with that.

‘The school dealt with it all very well indeed,’ he added. ‘They ensured that the students weren’t involved and were in a place of safety, so we could get on with fighting the fire.’

Dartmoor Multi-Academy Trust chief executive Daryll Chapman and college principal Derrick Brett were seeing pupils off the premises this afternoon as firefighters dampened down the last of the smoke. Mill Road was still closed at just after 4pm.

‘The kids were great, brilliant. They evacuated the building very very quickly, and the fire and ambulance crews were brilliant,’ said Mr Chapman.

‘We had actually had a fire test earlier in the day, so they knew what they were supposed to be doing,’ said Mr Brett. ‘Everyone got out very very quickly and it was a case then of waiting to be able to go back in. They were out there for about an hour and 20 minutes and got back in there at half past two.

‘We have never had anything like this before. We were just relieved to see that the smoke was this other side of the trees and not in the school building.’