A fire alarm went off inside West Side Elementary School on Laurel Hollow Road just after 4:45 a.m. Tuesday.
It appears the fire started in the library, which sustained significant damage. It also spread to the attached creative learning lab.
Firefighters from several local communities quickly arrived to the scene.
No children had arrived to the school campus when the fire began.
Heavy fire could be seen burning through the roof of the school as firefighters worked to control the blaze.
The electrical fire was under control in about two hours.
There is no sprinkler system inside because it wasn't required at the time of construction.
The school was closed for the day and there was no remote learning.
"Extensive damage if not by fire, by water," said Cold Spring School District Superintendent Joseph Monastero. "The fire department dumped a lot of water to put out the fire. So I would imagine most of them are really unusable."
Despite class being cancelled, students still showed up to see the library's destruction for themselves.
"I love school, unlike most kids, and this is serious," said fourth grader Leif Koka. "It's not like a snow day, like a fire burned down part of our school. It's not good."
"I don't know if we're gonna get the stuff back, the same stuff that we had in there, it's sad yeah," said fifth grader Luke Towers.
The West Side School is also historic. While the original building was being built in 1790, historians say President George Washington was touring Long Island, and happened to stop by. Legend has it, he helped raise one of the roof rafters.
Now, Superintendent Monastero says they will rebuild again.
"There's a lot of history here in West Side School and the community has been wonderful reaching out, cold, spring harbor, strong, everybody working together to make sure that we'll get through this together," he said.
There will be classes Wednesday, just not West Side Elementary. Instead, the district informed families that students will be split up by grade and sent to three different nearby schools, and bus pickup will remain the same, until it is deemed safe to return.
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