Students at the Estevan Comprehensive School had a bit of a shock this morning as they were evacuated from the school into frigid temperatures following a fire alarm in the school.

The Estevan Fire Department was quickly on the scene and investigated the disturbance briefly before informing the school that it was a false alarm.

Fire Chief Dale Feser Details exactly what happened this morning.

"At approximately 8:15 this morning we were called to the report of a commercial fire alarm that was occurring in the northeastern part of the city at the Estevan Comprehensive School," said Feser, "Crews did arrive on the scene and observed the fire alarm panel found a sprinkler had activated that was occurring on location."

"So upon further investigation and working with the maintenance staff it was found there was a malfunction in the boiler room that inadvertently had set off a sprinkler head," said Feser, "There were no fire conditions that were observed at that time, however, there was a substantial amount of heat."

Feser says that despite the disruption to the school day, thanks to it being a false alarm students and staff are able to get back to normal pretty quickly.

"The fire alarm and sprinkler system did activate and function as designed, we assisted with isolation of sprinkler zones, they're going to be draining the system, there's gonna be some contractors coming in to repair that particular sprinkler head," said Feser, "So we're happy to turn it back over to the staff and as there was no emergency staff and students will be able to attend as they normally would."

Feser suggests that said sprinkler may have been old and brittle, which would cause the part of a sprinkler that melts in regard to extreme heat to react to that extra heat.