Merced playground damaged by flames

A north Merced public playground burned Wednesday, leaving it unusable, according to city officials.

The climbing area attached to a slide, bars and other play structures showed signs of charring, melted plastic and burnt bark early Thursday.

Merced City Fire Department responded to the play area, which is just east of Rudolph Rivera Middle School near Santa Barbara Court, three separate times on Wednesday, according to Battalion Chief Billy Alcorn.

During the initial call, crews found no signs of a fire. When firefighters arrived at the playground for a second time, at 12:19 p.m., Rivera employees were using fire extinguishers on the flames. The crew put the fire out with “minimal” water, Alcorn said. During a later call, crews only found the equipment still smoldering.

It’s too soon to speculate if the fire was an arson, Alcorn said, but investigators have begun to look into it. “It definitely is a suspicious fire,” he said.

Public Works crews have since wrapped the structure in caution tape to warn children to stay away, officials said. Some of the joints holding up the climbing platforms melted away, yellow poles are now black from char and a toy clock at the structure’s base was warped by fire.

Merced city spokesman Mike Conway said firefighters responded to the same structure on May 14 after reports of smoke.

Conway said it’s too soon to know the extent of damage to the play equipment, but noted that structures can be pricy. For example, he said, a single slide set to go into a McNamara Park play area in the coming weeks will cost $12,000.

This story was originally published June 2, 2016 at 11:13 AM with the headline "Merced playground damaged by flames."