BOISE, Idaho — Boise Police and Fire are still investigating a playground fire that happened at Castle Hills Park Tuesday morning. Fire investigators claim that initial evidence shows it was intentional.
- The city of Boise considers the playground equipment "a total loss" after the fire.
- The playground is insured and Boise will be seeking neighborhood input on the replacement set.
- No timetable set on replacement. Boise Parks and Rec Director Doug Holloway says "the clean-up and costs to replace the equipment will be in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.”
(Below is the transcript from the broadcast story)
Boise Police are investigating a fire at Castle Hills Park. I'm your west Boise neighborhood reporter Isaiah Sharp and as you can see behind me here the play set was completely destroyed in what fire officials are saying was an intentionally set fire on Tuesday morning.
“It does upset me because it's such a nice quiet neighborhood,” said Terry Monasterio, Boise resident.
Terry Monasterio walks his dog through Castle Hills Park almost every day and is sad to see what is left behind now after an overnight fire torched the entire playground sometime early Tuesday morning.
“I’m very upset because like I said when I come down here, especially on the weekends or a nice day there’s usually you know 4 or 5 families here,” said Monasterio.
“Tons and tons of people come through this park walking dogs and when it snows there's cross country skiers. Lots of people use this park and I really love having it right in our neighborhood. It’s really cute,” said Helen Melville, Boise resident.
As you can see you can't get very close to this play set because of the fence that was placed around it, but I do want to highlight some of the damage caused by this fire starting with the rubber ground.
You can see the charcoal black, it was fairly isolated to just the playground, which is good because there are some dry trees and grass in this area. I do want to highlight how hot this fire got though as you can take a look at this slide that’s behind me, melting the plastic off all the way to the ground.
That's how hot it got and unfortunately, the city of Boise is considering this playground a total loss.
Monasterio hoping restoration will come sooner than later.
“I am hoping that they do finish it back so the kids can play with it again,” said Monasterio.
Boise Parks and Rec says that the play set is insured and they plan on replacing it. No timetable is set but they do plan on seeking out neighborhood input for the new playground.
I'm your west Boise neighborhood reporter Isaiah Sharp for Idaho News 6.
