Major fire breaks out in the historic schoolhouse building at the Fernald School site

NOTE: We will update this story as we receive more information.

Posted on April 19, 4:35 a.m. Updated 10:41 a.m. – Firefighters battled a 4-alarm fire at 200 Trapelo Road at the former Fernald State School property early this morning. Companies arrived to find heavy fire showing from two vacant buildings on the campus. A second and third alarm were quickly transmitted as crews encountered heavy fire on multiple floors of the building where the fire appeared to have started.

As the responders fought the fire, command reported a partial interior collapse. Multiple ladder pipes and master streams were placed into operation to try to gain control of the fire. Embers from the main fire also ignited a building across the street, requiring additional resources.

Conditions remain challenging, with fire through the roof, structural instability, and elevated humidity levels overnight. Firefighters are continuing efforts to contain the fire.

Companies from Lexington, Belmont, Newton, Watertown, Cambridge, Arlington, Wellesley, Needham, Somerville, Boston and Brookline provided assistance.

The cause of the fire is under investigation.

The building that caught on fire is the schoolhouse and gymnasium, which were built during the first major expansion of the institution in 1891 according to the Fernald State School website. The schoolhouse contained multiple classrooms and a generously supplied library. In addition to the classrooms, there were also workshops for boys and sewing rooms for girls, intended to impart practical skills applicable within and beyond the institution’s confines.

These buildings were “asbestos-abated and in perfectly reusable condition when the city bought it,” said Alex Green, a historian and author of A Perfect Turmoil, about Walter Fernald, who established the pioneering educational institution for the developmentally disabled. The schoolhouse was “one of the most important historic buildings” on the campus, said Green.