Los Angeles city fire officials have ordered the school district to post fire wardens at a new Northridge high school because of concern that the fire alarm system has failed to operate properly since the school opened last fall.
The city fire marshal's office called for the fire watch at the 500-student Valley New High School No. 1 last week after being notified by The Times, which obtained documents showing that the school's principal and others have complained for months about the alarm system.
The problems, these reports and interviews show, are that the fire alarm rings frequently and in some cases is unable to pinpoint the location of a potential fire at the school, known informally as CSUN High School.
School district building inspection reports also show that for months, the $33-million campus -- one of a record eight new schools opened last fall -- had some fire doors that wouldn't close and others that lacked functioning panic bars. And as recently as Jan. 5, one top Los Angeles Unified School District official questioned whether the campus was safe to reopen after the winter break.
District officials said that as of last Wednesday night, there have been two fire wardens on duty at the school 24 hours a day. One patrols the campus while the other sits by a phone in case a call has to be made to the Fire Department. Fire officials said they now feel confident the school is safe because the fire wardens are there.
Los Angeles school district officials said any problems with the fire doors and exit bars have been fixed and contend that the fire alarm system was "functional" all along and that students were never in jeopardy.
"I have no doubt in my mind that that was the case on Sept. 9, when we put kids in that school," said James A. McConnell Jr., who heads the district's massive building program.
He and other district officials said extensive testing showed only minor "discrepancies" in the alarm system, which they characterized as 96% in working order. They say the system is extremely sensitive, blaming malfunctions on the dust and dirt generated by ongoing construction.
But Assistant Fire Chief Al Hernandez said city fire authorities believe the alarm system "doesn't work to the standard that we want it to: without any errors.... We consider it broken."
Asked if the school's problems with false alarms and jammed fire doors had created a danger, Hernandez said: "I won't say that it was dangerous. It's not safe."
