Every school run by Oxfordshire County Council will undergo a fire risk assessment in a bid to better protect buildings.

In the past three years, 24 fires have broken out at schools, with the repair bill topping £2.1m.

The situation has to come to a head after a row about the level of protection in schools.

Only one - Windale School, in Blackbird Leys, Oxford - is fitted with a sprinkler system and none is equipped with an alarm linked directly to the fire service control centre.

Now firefighters are preparing to visit all 284 council schools and could recommend fitting sprinklers where they think there is a need.

Liberal Democrat councillor Jean Fooks has urged the authority's Conservative-run cabinet to look at providing fire-fighting equipment in schools.

And the issue is set to be addressed by the community safety scrutiny committee on Monday.

Ms Fooks said: "A lot of fires start when no-one is around and the first the fire service know about this is when neighbours see smoke billowing from buildings.

"If automatic alarms were fitted they would be there in a matter of minutes.

"It seems extraordinary that nothing has been done - it's something the council needs to address urgently.

"Over the past three years there have been 24 fires causing damage to buildings in Oxfordshire schools, with an estimated total cost of £2.1m.

"Had sprinklers or automatic fire alarm connections to the fire service been installed in these schools, the damage and consequent costs would have been massively reduced."

Children at Longfields Primary School, in Bicester, were left without a school building for six months after arsonists set it alight in February.

The school suffered £190,000 of damage. Sixty firefighters spent more than five hours battling the blaze after neighbours and passers-by raised the alarm.

The school suffered structural damage and £10,000 was spent on temporary classrooms.

Nationally, there are as many as 1,800 fires in schools each year - a third of which happen during term-time, with 90,000 pupils affected.

A study by the National Foundation for Educational Research found schools which suffered a fire reported a drop in morale among pupils and staff, as well as damage to exam results and irreplaceable pupil work.

Sprinkler systems could cut losses by up to 90 per cent, the research suggested.

Oxfordshire's chief fire officer, John Parry, said: "We do not want schools directly connected to us - our control room could not cope and the cost would be prohibitive.

"I would always want to see the minimum time delay between a fire occurring and the brigade being alerted to it because clearly that impacts on the size of the fire.

"The primary purpose of an alarm is to get everyone out.

"Connecting it up to the fire service is about minimising building damage."

Areas of a school deemed at risk, like a highly-flammable chemical laboratory, could be fitted with a so-called "suppression system", which could include sprinklers or a system that emits a mist of water to douse flames.