Fire Power

By Continued

Cross Plains, Texas

On Sunday, Dec. 7, 1997, all the clocks in Cross Plains High School stopped at 3:30 a.m. By that time, a fire at the school was roaring out of control. A nearby portable building that housed art classes was also ablaze. A few hours and more than $1.5 million in damages later, both structures were reduced to smoking shells. As temperatures within the main building soared to an estimated 2,000 degrees, 18-inch-thick steel beams in the roof sagged, and brick walls bowed.

Investigators say it could have been worse: If the fire had burned through the roof, the entire school might have been destroyed. As it was, the proud centerpiece of this small, nondescript West Texas town was badly damaged. "Nearly everybody in town went to this high school," says Ed Duncan, who was the town's police chief at the time of the blaze. "Their trophies were destroyed, their memorabilia. A lot of these adults...