JOHOR BARU, June 30 — The state Education Department will hold a special meeting to find out details of the losses incurred in the fire incident at Sekolah Menengah Kebangsaan (SMK) Pasir Gudang 3, near here this morning.

State Education, Information, Heritage and Culture Committee chairman Mazlan Bujang said the department would also seek advice from the Public Works Department (PWD), regarding the incident.

He said the fire damaged the school storeroom, server room and history room.

"Preliminary investigations found that the incident has resulted in losses estimated at about RM1 million as some appliances such as computers were damaged.

"We (the state government) will make every effort, if there is an emergency budget, we will use it (to repair the damage), if it is not enough we will request for an addition allocation (from the Education Ministry),” he told reporters after visiting the school today.

Also present was Pasir Gudang district Education officer Kuswandi Tayen.

Mazlan said the school session would continue as usual because the fire did not spread to other parts of the school as well as classrooms.

The incident at 9.49am took place on the third floor of the school building.

Mazlan said no injuries were reported as during the incident, 250 Form Five students of the school were in different buildings.

"However, students were still ordered to leave the buildings and gather at the school field, in accordance with the standard operating procedure (SOP),” he said.

Meanwhile, Fire and Rescue operations commander senior fire officer I Mohamad Faizul Selamat, in a separate statement said 24 personnel from the Larkin, Pasir Gudang and Johor Jaya Fire and Rescue stations were rushed to the scene after being alerted to the incident.

He said about 80 per cent of the storeroom and server room were destroyed by the fire, while the history room was 5 per cent burnt adding that the operation ended at 12.44pm. — Bernama