The cause of a house fire Thursday morning near Green Forest High School is still under investigation, fire chief Tim Howard said.
Howard said the Green Forest Fire Department got a call about the fire around 9 a.m., and firefighters were on the scene for about four hours.
“It started in a garage shop building connected to the house,” Howard said.
Green Forest schools were on lockdown to keep students from inhaling the smoke, superintendent Matt Summers said.
“We did go ahead and lock down the schools because the smoke was so intense and the wind was so high, we didn’t want students inhaling all that,” Summers said. “We kept the kids in the building. It was a loose lockdown…we were just trying to be as precautious as we could be.”
Summers said the lockdown lasted a little over an hour during the most intense part of the fire.