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A fire alarm that brought out a full assignment of firefighters to Berkeley High School Tuesday morning turned out to be a false alarm. 

Firefighters made a thorough check of all the floors of all the buildings on the campus, as did the school safety officers. They found no indication of a fire anywhere, said Assistant Fire Chief David Orth. 

He said the 911 report of a fire in “Building D” was a prank call made on a cellular telephone, and that it could have been made from anywhere – even right on the school campus. 

Orth said cellular phone calls to 911 are re-directed to the California Highway Patrol and then the CHP forwards them to the local jurisdictions. 

He said the Berkeley Fire Department received the call at 8:46 a.m. from the CHP and that they may have received the 911 call from someone relating the false alarm second hand. The California Highway Patrol told the Berkeley Fire Department that a fire was reported in the girls bathroom in Building D. 

But as Frank Brunetti, the district’s associate superintendent for business, noted, “We don’t have a Building D.” 

On Tuesday morning Orth said the department had considered the old heating plant by the Milvia entrance as a possible Building D, but he said such a designation would be discussed with school officials later in the day. 

At any rate, there is no girls bathroom in the old heating plant, which is scheduled to be razed to make way for new classroom structures on the east side of the high school campus. 

The Berkeley Fire Department deployed three engines, a ladder truck a duty chief and a staff person plus an engine and patrol unit with a pump from the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory. 

“We did not want to take any chances,” said Orth.