With the arrival of winter in Iran comes renewed fears of a repeat of the 2012 tragedy caused by a school's unsafe heating system.
On Dec. 6, Rasul Khezri, a representative from Piranshahr and Sardasht, announced to parliament that more than 130,000 classrooms in Iran did not have safe heating systems. He said, “Unsafe heating systems in classrooms are among the most important concerns.” Khezri made his remarks on the anniversary of a fire in the Enghelab elementary school, in the village of Shinabad, by the border town of Piranshahr.
On Dec. 5, 2012, an oil heater in one of the classrooms of the school for girls in Shinabad caught fire. The school’s janitor tried unsuccessfully to put it out with a fire extinguisher. When he then tried to remove the heater, it exploded, engulfing the entire classroom in flames. Out of the 37 students, two died and 29 were injured. Seven of the injured were hospitalized in intensive care, and doctors had to amputate the fingers of three of them because of the severity of the burns.
From February 1998 to December 2012, there were at least seven horrendous school fires in Iran, killing four students and severely injuring 63. The heating systems of some 86% of schools identified as being unsafe after the Shinabad incident remain dangerous.
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