A fire that damaged eight classrooms at a Virginia middle school was started by an escaped pet python, county investigators concluded. The Forest Fire Department was called to Forest Middle School by an alarm at 12:31 a.m. on Thursday, and the crews who arrived found the building's sprinkler system already going. The Bedford County Fire Marshal's Office later determined that the snake had got out of its classroom enclosure and knocked over the heat lamp that kept it warm.
The firefighters who went into the classroom were, in the department's own words, "greeted by an 8-foot python." They moved the animal into a temporary holding area and kept it there until its owner arrived to secure it back where it had come from. The fire was put out and no one was hurt.
Eight classrooms were damaged, by the flames and by the water that fought them, and the school district said those rooms will close while the repairs are done. The start of the school year was not pushed back. Classes assigned to the damaged rooms are being moved to other rooms inside the same building.
The issue is COLD BLOODED, an original cartridge for the Nintendo Entertainment System, and it puts the reader on the other side of the story. You are the python, and you are not malicious: you are cold, the heat is off until morning, and the only warm things in the building are six reptile lamps standing in six classrooms. Wrapping one is what warms you, and it is also what puts it over and lights the floor beside it. Three fires open the sprinkler risers; the water then puts the fires out, takes away room, and makes every remaining minute cost more heat, because a soaked building takes it faster. Last until 12:31 and the crews find you. Play it here in the browser, or download the ROM and run it on real hardware.