OGDEN — Classes for Lincoln Elementary students will begin as scheduled Wednesday despite an $8 million fire that demolished their 30-year-old school Sunday.
Investigators believe the blaze at 1235 N. Canfield was intentionally set, Ogden City Fire Marshal Matt Schwenk said. Someone poured "ignitable liquid" in several places around the building.
Authorities are following leads on possible suspects, but no arrests had been made, Ogden Police Lt. John Stubbs said. Damage to the school is estimated at $8 million — $6 million for the structure, $2 million for the contents, including some of the children's pets — an iguana, turtle and tank of fish, district spokeswoman Debbie Hefner said.
Monday a thin haze of smoke still wafted from the blackened heaps of concrete and rubble.
At nearby Edison Elementary, Lincoln principal Kathleen Thornburg met with grief counselors and teachers to discuss plans for the upcoming school year. Later, about 45 Lincoln teachers and school district administrators met in a classroom to discuss ways to deal with the children's emotions.
Thornburg said she expects the school could be rebuilt as quickly as 18 to 24 months.
For now, the 400 Lincoln students, in kindergarten through sixth grade, will attend Edison Elementary School. Portable classrooms not damaged by fire at Lincoln and more portables from Weber School District will be set up around Edison.
Officials discussed plans Monday to send students from Lincoln and Edison to school in two separate morning and afternoon shifts or to stagger start times for students from both schools by two hours.
"The ultimate goal is to get enough portables brought in so that each teacher will have his or her own classroom," Thornburg said.
Thornburg said she believed starting school on time will help students better adjust psychologically to the loss.
"It's better just to get going because the kind of obstacles we'll run into now we would run into next Tuesday," she said.
As he looked over the rubble Monday, arson investigator James H. Dudzinski said the school burned "instantaneously" because of an ignitable liquid that was used to start the fire.
"At the speed the building burned . . . it probably was poured throughout the building," Dudzinski said.
The blaze sparked about 2:45 a.m., Schwenk said. When firefighters arrived, the west side of the single-story building was engulfed in flames.
Firefighters attacked the blaze from outside until the roof collapsed, then went inside. Everything inside was destroyed, except for computer hard drives from the school's office that firefighters carried out.
Crews from Ogden, South Ogden, Roy and North Ogden battled the blaze for 4 1/2 hours, Schwenk said. A smaller crew mopped up hot spots for the next 12 hours.
Police also were on scene keeping crowds back. Throughout the day, neighbors, former and current students and others visited the building, which was leveled.
Bonnie Pain and Denise Sattiewhite, both teachers for the Ogden School District, were shocked to see the school up close. They said their hearts broke for the teachers and the materials that they lost. The school would have had an open house Thursday.
"They would have had the name tags and supplies on their desks," said Pain, who teaches at Bonneville Elementary. "I feel mostly bad for their bulletin boards and all the work" put in to creating them.
"I can't believe this. This is terrible," said Sattiewhite, who teaches at Gramercy Elementary. "This must have been a joke. A real sick joke because we're not laughing."
Ashley Barnett, 10, was to enter fifth grade at Lincoln and had attended the school since kindergarten. She said she has a lot of memories of Lincoln. "A lot of them were nice."
Ashley was excited for the new school year, especially to learn under her new teacher. Now she doesn't know who will teach her.
After the meeting at Edison, Lincoln teachers drove to the site of their former school. There they and students stood in clusters staring at the wreckage, with a couple of teachers walking through the mounds of debris and others taking photos. Folding chairs, door frames, bricks and cinderblocks were piled among pipes and blackened wood and flooring material in a gigantic heap.
Matt Lanzarotta, who would have started fifth grade at Lincoln this week, noted he had been attending classes there since kindergarten. "We didn't believe what my dad told me on the phone, that the school burned down," he said.
Now, staring at the rubble, he believed, but when asked how he felt, replied "not too upset."
Brandon Kies, who lives nearby, had just graduated from fifth grade at Lincoln. "I didn't believe my mom when she said it had burned down," he said. Even on Monday, looking at the rubble, he said, "I can't believe it, it's weird."
Andrea Hatch, who taught special education students, pointed out the wreckage where the office and her classrooms once were. "All the files for the special education children are gone," she noted. Hatch has taught at the school for seven years and now is going through a lot of emotions.
"First it wasn't true and now we're trying to put the pieces together in our minds," she said.
"I feel like our things have been stolen from us. And we're worried about the children and how they'll cope with it. I feel a great loss."
Bailey Jensen, who also just graduated from fifth to sixth grade, said, "It makes me feel sad for the little kids because they loved going here . . . they had a lot of fun things to do here," like field trips, choir and violin for fifth graders, she said.
"This is very, very said," neighbor Carolyn Fimbres said. Although she never had children who attended the school, she said Lincoln played an important role in the community as a place where the neighborhood voted, and where outdoor activities and school fairs were held.
A meeting for parents of Lincoln students will be held 6 p.m. Monday at Ben Lomond High School, 800 Jackson Ave.
E-MAIL: lhancock@desnews.com