New Orleans Crews Tackle 2-Alarm Blaze at Abandoned School

New Orleans firefighters spent more than two hours battling a two-alarm fire at the site of the former Robert R. Moton Elementary School Monday morning.

No one was injured in the blaze, which started inside the abandoned, two-story school, located at 3048 Abundance St., in the Desire neighborhood, according to Capt. Edwin Holmes, spokesman for the New Orleans Fire Department.

The fire was reported around 10:14 a.m. Firefighters arrived to find smoke hanging in the air throughout the neighborhood.

The crews had to cut the locks from the front gates and remove coverings meant to secure doors and windows from trespassers, according to Holmes.

Once inside, they found a large fire on the building's first floor that had spread to the second floor and up through the roof, authorities said. The department called a second-alarm for more help after discovering secondary fires in the building.

The cause of the fire is under investigation, but Holmes called the blaze "suspicious" because the building had no working utilities. Firefighters found evidence that vagrants had been inside the property, Holmes said.

Moton Elementary closed after the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in 1994 declared the area a Superfund site because of hazardous waste contamination. The school was built on top of the Agriculture Street Landfill, which had been in use from about 1909 to 1957.

A Civil District Court in 2015 ordered the Orleans Parish School Board to pay $12 million to former students who attended the school.

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