A single office in the Armona Elementary School administration building caught fire early Saturday morning in a blaze that could have burned the entire structure to the ground, according to county firefighters. "Thankfully, someone closed the office door and it made a good seal," Kings County Assistant Fire Chief Mike Virden said. "We always tell people to close their doors, because sometimes it helps contain the fire. This time, the door held everything in the office, so there was very little damage to the structure. This didn't even do much external damage.

"But, if the door had been open, the fire could have taken out all of the administrative offices."

Kings County firefighters were called to Armona Elementary School just before 3 a.m. to battle a small blaze that caused significant damage to equipment and furniture. When the smoke cleared, only the assistant principal's office suffered damage, with only minor smoke stains on the outside of the building where the windows broke out.

"The damage could be up into the tens of thousands of dollars, based on the lost office furniture in the room and the school server that was housed in the room," Virden said. "If that was destroyed, then you could be looking at a wild guess in the range of $50,000 to $60,000 in damages."

But while the dollar value may be great, the damages were not enough to deter school from resuming as usual today.

"There is nothing wrong with the classrooms, as the fire was contained to the main office," Armona Union Elementary School District Superintendent Steve Bogan said. "We put out an all-call to parents to let them know on Saturday that nothing is wrong. Really, we've just had to clear everything out of those areas affected by the fire, so we can get the smoke smells out. Aside from that, school is functioning normally, with the exception of our phone and intercom systems."

The fire is still under investigation at this time.

"The fire doesn't appear to be criminal in nature right now, but we are not going to say that it isn't a possibility," Virden said. "There are still some things we have to confirm and look at before we can give a more definitive answer."

Technicians are working to assess the damage done to the elementary school's telecommunications system. While the school was switched to an analog phone system to allow people to contact the campus over the weekend, as of 9:40 a.m. on Monday morning, the school's main phone line has been reactivated.

"Everyone is pitching in to get things up and running again," Bogan said. "We even had some of our school board members down here at 3 a.m. on Saturday, just helping us clean up. It was quite an event."

While the repairs are under way, anyone who wishes to reach Armona Elementary School's administrative office can still contact the school at 583-5010.

The reporter can be reached at 583-2425.

(Oct. 20, 2008)