AKRON, Ohio — Akron Firefighters battled a blaze at Akron Ellet CLC Fieldhouse on Tuesday afternoon while students were still in class.
"I was in lunch, seventh period. I remember, I'm seeing our new coach, Coach Sachs. He was running down the hall. I'm like, oh, there must, like, he must be, like, getting, like, a workout in or something," said Cody Lutz, a sophomore at Ellet CLC.
Lutz said someone came over the loudspeakers and asked all teachers to make sure they closed their windows. It made Lutz wonder if something was on fire.
"Then I went inside the gym. It pretty much smelled like burnt, like burning steel, kind of, and like burnt installation," Lutz said. "And I'm like, I'm like, did they burn something in the automotive room?
The Akron Fire Department told News 5 the damage was considerable.
"You could see the burn pattern there toward the other end of the building," said Robert Langston, the Public Information Officer for the department. "It got up into the rafters, up into the roof, and it appeared to spread along the roof line from there. So the interior of the building, particularly around along the roof lines, suffered some considerable damage."
All of the new weight room equipment in the Fieldhouse was destroyed.
"I was surprised because, like, I didn't think it was real at first," said Lutz.
The teams can use the equipment inside the school, but they will have to compete with students in other sports.
"Yeah, it's a lot smaller inside than it is out there. So I hope we'll make it work somehow," said Brandon Guest, a sophomore. "I was a little scared for, like, football, because we just got a new coach, as you know, and I'm not 100% sure how that's going to work now, it's going to cut off a few of our offseason lists."
The cause of the fire is still under investigation.
