EDMONTON — Fire caused several thousand dollars of damage to the play equipment at Lee Ridge Elementary School Sunday evening.
Community members spent years raising money to build the park.
“Totally frustrating,” said Leefield Community League president Wil Tonowski Sunday night. “I got the call about half an hour ago that our park was on fire.
“The fire department did their usual good job and they’ve put the fire out, which is fantastic, but the damage has been done and it’s a lot of damage.”
On Monday, fire officials said the damage estimate is $250,000.
Tonowski said it appeared about half the park was damaged by the fire.
“The heartbreaking thing is we just finished building this park,” he said. “It was a four-year project to the tune of just under $500,000.”
“We don’t know exactly how bad it is, but we’ve got a school here that’s 30 feet away from this park and there’s going to be kids here early in the morning.”
“It’s a shame.”
Several groups helped fund the playground, including the community league, the Lee Ridge Parent Advisory Council, the city, the Rotary Club of Edmonton Southeast, and the Mill Woods Lions Club.
The cause of the fire has not been determined.
Sandra Weeks, head of the park fundraising committee, said once the playground was complete, it was handed over to the city to maintain. The community league said that means the city is responsible for any clean up or repairs.
“It is sad. I’m a little in shock. It seems surreal. We just had a celebration the night before with this playground,” said Weeks.
“We took about five years to get this underway. This is an all abilities and all ages playground. It has a lot of special features and details put into it.”
The city said it’s too early to provide a timeline for when repairs will happen.
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