Small blaze at Lake Zurich Middle School South doused by sprinklers

Fire officials credited the sprinkler system at Lake Zurich Middle School South for doing most of the work to extinguish a small fire that broke out early Friday morning when the building was unoccupied.

Lake Zurich Fire Chief David Pilgard said a floor cleaning machine caught fire in an auxiliary entrance at the school. By the time fire crews arrived just after 12:33 a.m. Friday, the sprinklers had mostly snuffed out the fire, Pilgard said.

"The alarm system did a great job and notified them of the problem, and the sprinkler system did a great job almost completely extinguishing it," he said.

No one was injured, and the fire didn't affect the school day Friday after a quick cleanup job. Both the school's regular maintenance crew and an outside cleaning company arrived to sop up the sprinkler water, clean the damage from the fire and eliminate the odors.

"Water in the sprinkler system just sits in it and gets an icky odor to it," Pilgard said.

Pilgard said investigators are inspecting the floor cleaner to determine why it caught fire.