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By Thomas Moriarty Mail Tribune October 28. 2014 4:51PM Fire marshal visit prompts cancellation of Sacred Heart haunted house The future of a Medford private school's longtime haunted house is in question after a visit from the State Fire Marshal's Office Friday resulted in the cancellation of the school's 2014 event. Sacred Heart Catholic School Principal Patrick Gross said the school decided to cancel its annual haunted house after a fire marshal's inspection found safety problems during a visit Friday. The event was scheduled to run 6-8 p.m. Friday and Saturday. "We did, like several organizations, receive a visit from the fire marshal, who expressed some concerns about the way things were set up," Gross said Friday. "The changes we would need to make weren't feasible in the time we had, so we decided to cancel the event for the year." Fire Marshal Greg Kleinberg said one of the big issues with the Sacred Heart haunted house setup was one inspectors had encountered several times in the past few years. "Hanging plastic that's very flammable — it was hung throughout the gym," he said. "The fire code prohibits the use of untreated combustible materials." Kleinberg said the mazes popular in many haunted houses also pose problems with fire-code compliance.  "If you're going to build a maze-type of setup, you have to have an exit every 50 feet," he said. Kleinberg said it's fairly uncommon for seasonal events to have safety issues so severe that they have to be dealt with immediately or shut down, but inspectors have recently had a number of problems with haunted houses specifically. "Mainly because people didn't come in and talk to us ahead of time," he said. "A lot of these issues could have been prevented." Among fire inspectors' biggest concerns is that a fire will break out in a confined space with a large number of occupants and no means of escape. "That would be the absolute worst situation," Kleinberg said. Gross, who took over as the school's principal in August, said he didn't know exactly how long the school had been holding the haunted house but that it's a longstanding tradition. "We're going to revisit the event," Gross said. "We will certainly (find a solution) — we want all our events to be safe." Reach reporter Thomas Moriarty at 541-776-4471, or by email at [email protected] . Follow him at @ThomasDMoriarty . http://www.mailtribune.com/article/20141028/NEWS/141029641 © 2015 Copyright © 1995-2011 Crain Communications Inc. All Rights Reserved. Terms of Use Privacy Statement -->