Suspicious blaze at Calgary elementary school under investigation
This is the second fire at one of the charter school's campuses in the last few months
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A fire at a southwest Calgary elementary school on Saturday evening has been deemed suspicious by investigators.
The Calgary Fire Department responded to the blaze after reports of an outside fire at Foundations for the Future Charter Academy’s southwest elementary campus on Sylvester Crescent S.W. just before 7:30 p.m. Crews arrived to find a burning wood pallet with garbage on top of it pressed up against the side of the school, said acting battalion chief Innes Fraser.
“At that time the fire was upgraded to a structure fire; additional units were assigned and the fire was quickly knocked down,” he said.
Fraser said the blaze did not get inside the school and there was minimal damage to the exterior of the building, but the blaze is being investigated as suspicious.
“What our investigators do is they watch for patterns. … They’ll start to look at other fires and patterns in the area,” said Fraser.
This is the second fire at one of the charter school’s campuses in the last few months.
In May, a fire severely damaged the academy’s south high school campus, about four kilometres north of the elementary school, shuttering the institution and forcing students to spend the remainder of the school year at Mount Royal University.
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