Officials continue investigation of Kids Kingdom fire

Sept. 27--The New Mexico State Fire Marshal's Office and Alamogordo Fire Department along with the Alamogordo Police Department concluded from their onsite investigation that the Kids Kingdom fire has been determined to be incendiary in nature, according to a City of Alamogordo press release.

"We know it was an incendiary fire," AFD Chief Mikel Ward said. "We know it was some type of human act. We don't know the motivation or the method yet. I am not sure if somebody did it on purpose or if somebody did it accidentally."

Ward said the investigation into the exact cause on the fire is ongoing.

"The cause and origin exam was done by all three agencies," he said. "The State Fire Marshal and city police will be working together to do the subsequent criminal investigation. We'll be involved but they will be leading the investigation up."

Alamogordo police and fire department units responded to Kids Kingdom, 1950 Oregon Ave., around 8:51 a.m. Friday in reference to a structure fire at the playscape. Upon arrival officers and firefighters found the wooden playscape structure fully engulfed in flames.

"The initial knock down of the fire took about 15 minutes," Ward said. "By 9:20 a.m. the lieutenant reported in that the fire was contained at that point then they had to go through with foam and look through it smolders because it had all that heavy timber wood. My guys did a really good job on the initial on scene efforts with suppression. Just a stellar job on the part of on scene hands on firefighters. We really do have best group of firefighters in the state."

According to the City's press release, the Kids Kingdom property has been released for workers to clean up the debris from the fire.

Ward said he lived in Alamogordo when Kids Kingdom was built.

He said he played on the playscape after it was built with his children.

"I played on it with all of my kids," Ward said. "It's a very sad loss for our community."

According to the City's release, Alamogordo firefighters did respond to two unrelated fires on Friday that were determined to be accidental but in no way connected to the Kids Kingdom fire.

City of Alamogordo spokeswoman Laurie Dean said after surveying the remains of the fire at Kids Kingdom, it was determine that the concrete block walls from the original build were not damaged.

Dean said it is the City's intent to incorporate the walls with the tiles into the new design of the playground and the walls will therefore not be removed at this time.

"Because of the age of the tiles, they are very fragile and removing them would cause them to break," she said. "People bought the tiles as fundraising then most of the tiles have hand prints, names and ages on them. The wood boards with names on them were lost in the fire. The boards were pretty much down to ashes unfortunately by the time the fire was out."

Dean said she and City officials will know the value of rebuilding Kids Kingdom at this time.

"Our insurance hasn't started their own investigation," she said. "Once they do that they will have an idea of what will be able to get from it. The structure was insured. It is in the process. It may take a few weeks for us to get all of that settled. At this point since it happened Friday, we're not even at the point of looking at a design or plan for that yet. We will be utilizing that space for another playground area."

Dean said the City wants to again thank their residents for the outpouring of concern and support during this tragic event.

"We realize the importance of this structure to the community and hope to have a plan soon regarding its replacement," she said. "Any funds received from insurance for the structure will be put back into the park. Once we find out how much we're going to have to work with, it will make it a little bit easier to be able to determine what to put there. At that point we may be able to have community input."

Anyone with information about the Kids Kingdom fire can contact the Alamogordo Fire Department at 439-4119, Alamogordo Police Department at 439-4300 or Crime Stoppers at 434-7812.

___

(c)2016 the Alamogordo Daily News (Alamogordo, N.M.)

Visit the Alamogordo Daily News (Alamogordo, N.M.) at www.alamogordonews.com

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.