AS education chiefs in Lancashire were being urged today by the county's fire authority to install sprinkler systems in all schools, a rude shock is, surely, delivered to the public by the accompanying disclosure that, at present, none has this vital equipment.

It is not just that public safety -- that of thousands of children and staff -- is reduced by this lack, but also that an immense burden is imposed on taxpayers picking up the staggering bill for fire damage at schools.

For, according to the latest figures in a report by the Lancashire Combined Fire Authority, more than £4million-worth of damage has occurred over eight years in 534 school fires. Indeed, the cost to the public purse is even higher as this tally only goes up to last year and does not include the £2million loss of the Brindle Gregson Lane primary school at Hoghton, which burned down in May.

And the necessity for the much greater fire protection is clearly stressed not only by the frequency of fires at schools and the vast expense entailed, but also by the vulnerability of these premises. In 90 per cent of cases arson is involved.

Our schools are an immense, costly and vital public resource and if an undertaking of their scale and importance belonged to the realm of business or industry, its owners would never allow it to be without the sort of essential fire safeguards that sprinklers provide.

Moreover, it is not as if investing in sprinkler protection -- and the pay-back that would come from slashing the damage bill -- is excessive. The cost of a system, we learn, is no more than carpeting the area protected.

At last, this dangerous deficiency has been realised -- the Gregson Lane school will be the first to have sprinklers when it is rebuilt. But this is only a pilot scheme and education chiefs are still only considering whether, starting with other new buildings, more should follow.

Surely this revealing fire authority report makes it obvious that widespread action is already long overdue.