DINWIDDIE COUNTY, Va. -- One of four students hurt in a Dinwiddie High School chemistry class fire remained hospitalized one week after the incident, Dinwiddie County Schools Superintendent Kari Weston said during a Wednesday afternoon update.
While the chemistry teacher still hasn't spoken to school investigators about what happened in his classroom on October 12, both school and fire officials felt they had enough information to share what they believed happened that morning in class.
"[We've] collected, processed, and analyzed both the physical evidence from the classroom which we were able to collect, as well as we have conducted interviews with several other students who were present at that time," Dinwiddie Fire Chief Dennis Hale said. "The investigation has determined that the incident occurred during a flammable liquid demonstration being performed by the classroom teacher for a chemistry class."
Hale said the teacher, who has been at the school for nearly two decades, was conducting an experiment at the front of his classroom.
Nineteen students, none of whom were wearing the proper protective gear, watched from their seats, Hale said.
"That demonstration involved placing methanol in an open-top beaker with water and igniting it using the smoldering wooden splint," Hale said. "The demonstration had been conducted once, and the teacher was in the process of adding additional methanol from an open narrow neck one-gallon container."
For that second experiment, the container used was the same one the teacher used during the first experiment, Hale said.
"As the methanol was poured, the methanol vapor at the bottle opening caused a phenomenon known as flame jetting," Hale said. "Flame jetting caused a large amount of the methanol to be rapidly admitted from the bottle and ignite. This fire traveled diagonally across the front of the classroom, approximately 10 feet, until that flame reached the adjacent wall of the classroom where it scorched a whiteboard and ignited some paper on the bulletin board."
Hale said the "ignition source" for the fire is believed to be the methanol that was still burning in the beaker from the first demonstration.
"The four students who were injured were all directly in the path of fire that would have traveled from the mouth of the jug to the wall in a straight line," Hale said.
Superintendent Weston said she has not spoken to the teacher about why certain safety protocols were not followed.
"We need to be respectful of people and what they need in this moment," she said when asked why she has not yet spoken to the teacher about the fire. "As you can imagine, was very traumatic for him."
She also did not know why this specific experiment was chosen for that day's lesson.
"He was teaching chemistry standard three, and that is specific to polar and nonpolar bonds," she said. "What we asked teachers to do is unpack the standards. So this particular standard says, 'understand and investigate.' So what we want them to do is to unpack that standard, to ensure that they provide the kinds of activities that certainly would engage our young people in learning."
She added there is no district-wide rule requiring that demonstrations be approved by school leaders but is looking into that moving forward.
"The use of methanol is an acceptable chemical to be found in a chemistry classroom," she said. "We were able to speak to one of the other chemistry teachers who was able to confirm for us that this would be something that you might expect to see in an experiment and/or demonstration, as long as it's done in a safe and controlled environment."
Weston said she expected to be able to speak to the chemistry teacher in question in the next week.
While the fire investigation is complete, both the school system and sheriff’s department are continuing their investigations.
The chemistry teacher is on leave from school and, at this point, he does not face any criminal charges.
This is a developing story, so anyone with more information can email newstips@wtvr.com to send a tip.
