A fire in the schoolyard of Lafayette Elementary School around 10:30 p.m. on Sunday night destroyed its play structure, following another fire earlier this month that damaged a PTA storage container in the yard.
This is the second suspicious fire in a month at Lafayette Elementary School, located in the Outer Richmond, on 36th Avenue between Anza and Balboa streets.
The cause of the fire on Sunday is unknown and under investigation, according to the San Francisco Fire Department. “What I do know is, it was only the play structure, and nothing further was involved,” said Sukai Curtis-Contreras, a San Francisco Fire Department spokesperson.
“It was really heartbreaking, especially to walk through and see what remains of this structure where our kids played every day,” said Erin Feher-Montoya, the school PTA president, who learned about the fire early Monday morning.
“We understand that two incidents in a short time is concerning,” the San Francisco Unified School District wrote in a statement. The district is “taking the situation very seriously.”
The district has reviewed and reinforced emergency procedures, and all affected areas have been secured, the statement read. It has also arranged “supervised alternatives for outdoor play.”
The yard is now closed to children, and the school district installed chain-link fences around the area this morning, Feher-Montoya said. The PTA is organizing a community gathering on Tuesday morning to create a work of art on the fence to obscure the destruction at the playground.
“We’re trying to provide a good example that we can stay cool and calm and collected when faced with things like this,” Feher-Montoya said. Parents have donated fabric, sheets, tablecloths and ribbons, and they will gather at the yard at 8 a.m. tomorrow to weave and cover the fence.
The first fire, which happened early in the morning of May 1, damaged a storage container that stores items including school sweatshirts, tees, hats, marigold strands, Chinese lanterns and handmade carnival games “that have been with us for decades,” Feher-Montoya wrote in a Nextdoor post.
The PTA is asking those who’d like to offer support to contribute to the Lafayette PTA fundraiser, and neighbors to send footage of the surrounding area to SFPD and SFFD to help the investigation.
This is a developing story and will be updated as more information becomes available.