UNION COUNTY, Tenn (WVLT) -- Repairs and some extra cleaning will need to be done before kids go back to school on August 6th at Big Ridge Elementary in Union County.

Fire caused damage to one of the classrooms this morning.

A custodian, Hank Bailey arrived at the school at 6:30 Tuesday morning to find smoke coming from one of the classrooms.

He called the fire department.

"All I heard was fire alarms and walked up and saw smoke."

They determined a shelf full of books was smoldering.

Paulette Fire Department Chief Daniel Rice says, "We made an interior attack and forced our way into classroom two, where we found heavy smoke and smoldering with small flames. We extinguished that fire.

Director of schools, Wayne Goforth says they were lucky the school was empty.

And that the fire was contained to one classroom.

Goforth says, "Any time you have a fire in the building and no one is in or no one is hurt, you feel fortunate. But we will have some smoke damage to computers and projectors used in the classrooms."

The extent of the damage still needs to be assessed.

They would not say the fire is or isn't suspicious.
Only that it is now under investigation by the state fire marshall.