Girl, 6, saves her fellow pupils from fire in Milton Keynes school today

Little girl is hailed a heroine by headmistress after spotting a fire at her school
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A six-year-old girl saved her infants school from suffering a serious blaze today.

Little Felisha Donnarumma was outside at morning break with her classmates from Heelands School this morning.

She asked to go back inside the school to use the loo, but on her way noticed a smell of burning.

Felisha DonnarummaFelisha Donnarumma
Felisha Donnarumma

She looked around and discovered a light fitting in one of the teaching areas had burst into flames.

Without panicking, Felisha alerted a teacher, who immediately evacuated the playground and called the fire service as the fire alarm system went into action.

Though the school is now covered in soot and water, the damage is only cosmetic and can be repaired. Without Felisha's quick action, it could have been far worse.

Headteacher Lesley Barnard said: "Incredibly sensibly, she raised the alarm with a nearby member of staff as the fire system went into action. What a heroine!"

Heelands school suffered smoke and water damage and is closed tomorrowHeelands school suffered smoke and water damage and is closed tomorrow
Heelands school suffered smoke and water damage and is closed tomorrow

She added: "The school was evacuated within minutes. The fire brigade arrived (to great excitement) and the fire was put out.

"The children were superbly sensible and well=behaved. They are well trained in fire drills and this really showed in their mature response. They were amazing."

Firefighters had to disconnect the power to deal with the blaze, thought to have been caused by an electrical problem with a high light fighting.

The school was left with no telephone to contact parents and tell them what had happened. But one of the staff members did an emergency dash home to use her own phone to ring around, said Mrs Barnard.

The school will be closed tomorrow (Tuesday) but staff plan to re-open it as soon as possible.

"The damage is mostly cosmetic," said the headteacher. "The walls and carpet were the worst hit and everything is covered in a layer of black soot and soaking wet from the hoses."

Felisha's mum and Katrina and Liam, who have two older children, said they were "beyond proud" of their daughter.

"She has done such a great thing for a child of her age," said Katrina.

"This just feels us with joy and happiness knowing we have taught her the importance of danger and safety. We’ve always brought our children up to know to act calm and sensible as soon as danger occurs., We believe doing this makes the mind think more clearly on the best action to take to resolve the incident".

Katrina added: "We believe Felisha's fast acting actions and maturity potentially saved a lot of lives. God forbid the fire wasn’t found and progressed to an extremely dangerous situation."

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