Wickham fire: Islington Public School students, staff moved to five different Newcastle schools over asbestos concerns

The news came as demolition of the two gutted structures on Annie Street continued on Monday while environmental investigators went on assessing and cleaning parts of neighbourhoods west of the fireground, after concern the inferno blew asbestos into nearby suburbs.

The roofs of the woolsheds, which sat only 30 metres from eight million litres of fuel kept in tanks at the adjacent Ampol storage depot, were made from Super Six - a building product that contains asbestos.

Wind spread fire debris - including some containing the potentially dangerous material - into Maryville and Islington - causing the closure of Islington Park, Islington Public School and prompting a raft of reports from residents of suspected asbestos on and around their properties.

Tim McCallum, who is the Department of Education's executive director for northern regional NSW, told the Newcastle Herald that 180 students and about 20 staff from Islington Public School would return to face-to-face learning at five schools that had made space for them from Tuesday.

THE WICKHAM BLAZE:

He said classes would remain together and continue with their usual teachers.

Tighes Hill Public School, Mayfield East Public School, Waratah West Public School, Waratah Public School and Callaghan College at Waratah would take in the Islington students and staff.

Mr McCallum said Islington Public School had been industrially cleaned at the weekend but there remained concern about potentially contaminated debris being blown into the school grounds.

So the decision was made to keep students and staff off the premises until the Department of Education received clearance from the NSW Environment Protection Authority.

He could not give an indication of how long the Islington students and staff could be displaced.

"Number one would be safety - that's our key reason [for taking this action]," Mr McCallum said.

"Then of course the continuity of learning face-to-face becomes really important for parents and for teachers and particularly for students."

Super Six is a corrugated cement product, most commonly used as roof cladding, that was manufactured using asbestos fibres. While it is non-friable, asbestos fibres can become airborne when Super Six is damaged by fire.

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