DEARBORN, Mich. – A fire destroyed a special needs playground at Nowlin Elementary School in Dearborn on Thursday night, leaving the equipment melted and mangled.
The flames came precariously close to nearby trees, power lines, and the school itself.
“If that wind would’ve been blowing in any other direction than out of the East, it would’ve been devastating,” Barry Sanderson, who lives across the street from the playground, said on Friday.
Sanderson has lived in this neighborhood near Penn and Madison for more than 50 years and says his children and grandchildren attended Nowlin Elementary. He’d never seen anything like it.
“It stayed away from the trees, stayed away from the wires,” he said. “It made a big, big difference.”
Sanderson says he noticed two young boys across the street at the playground, not long before the fire erupted.
The boys can be seen gathering something and piling it up under one of the slides.
Around 6:50 p.m., the boys hop on an electric bike and take off, and shortly thereafter, the flames appear.
By 6:59, the flames and smoke had fully engulfed the playground equipment.
By 7:01 p.m., the Dearborn Fire Department had put out the fire.
In a statement released on Friday, the Dearborn Public Schools said: “While we are saddened by the loss of equipment enjoyed by our students and our community, we are grateful that no one was hurt and that the damage was confined to the play structure.”
The Dearborn Police say the investigation is active and that they have been in contact with the two pre-teens who were seen on the playground, adding that their parents are cooperating with police.
The investigation is ongoing, and anyone with information is asked to contact the Dearborn Police Department. Any decision on charges will be left to the Wayne County Prosecutor’s Office.