The school had no sprinklers, no regular fire preparatory drills were carried out. When a small fire broke out in a pile of trash in the basement it led to a disaster. A catalogue of errors or a result of poor communication also resulted in the high loss of so many young lives.

The fire was believed to have started around 2.30pm and within a short time teachers on the first floor were made aware of the smell of smoke. These teachers led their classes outside and to safety but failed to raise the general alarm. The schools janitor was next to be aware of the fire at 2.42 and shouted for the alarm to be rung. He was however, either not heard or the alarm system simply did not work correctly. The students and teachers in the classrooms on the second floor were left unaware of the flames rapidly spreading beneath them.

Within a few more minutes the fire reached the second floor. Panic erupted and some students jumped out of windows to escape the flames. Firefighters were by now arriving on the scene and trying to catch some of those fleeing the flames by jumping from the windows. Many students escaped but were injured on landing. Firefighters also managed to get ladders up to the windows to assist in the rescue attempts. One of the teachers, a nun, had her class of students crawl along the floor beneath the smoke and down the stairs to safety, they were all rescued. Other classes remained in the rooms praying for help. It took several hours before the fire was fully extinguished, inside the burned out classrooms were the remains of 90 students and three nuns killed in the fire.

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