The Greenwood Public School District says its insurance company has disputed a fire marshal's conclusion that a Feb. 17 fire at Greenwood High School was arson, but fire officials are not reversing their opinion.
Adjusters from the fire investigation division of Traveler's Insurance Co. made a different assessment, Assistant Superintendent Jim Mattox told the School Board on Tuesday. The company has not released a written opinion about what caused the fire.
City Fire Marshal Terry Ricks says he is standing firm by the decision he and the state fire marshal reached in their investigation.
"I'm still treating it as an incendiary fire," Ricks said this morning. "At this point, I still have the opinion that there was possibly a criminal element involved."
Ricks said the insurance company hasn't determined whether the cause was accidental. "I don't think they have an opinion one way or the other on it," he said. "They leave it up to fire officials like me to determine the actual cause."
Ricks said the ongoing investigation is focusing on a space heater that insurance agents suspect caused the nighttime fire, which broke out in the office of Dr. Gwendolyn Chandler, the school's assistant principal.
While that theory might point to an accident, the placement of the heater is what raises suspicion, Ricks said. It was found near charred stacks of papers and files, away from where Chandler remembers seeing it last, he said.
That incongruity is puzzling the insurance company, Ricks said.
"They can't figure out why the heater was there when the occupant of the office said it was in a different part of the office," he said.
The state Fire Marshal's Office is still offering a $1,000 reward for information leading to the arrest or conviction of anyone responsible for setting the fire.
Meanwhile, the school district is waiting for an estimate on how much replacing the high school's administrative offices will cost. Rozier Construction Co. is tallying up the demolition and replacement costs.
Over spring break last week, the district's maintenance staff cleaned out all the debris left over from the fire.
"The building has basically been gutted," said Mattox. "The staff is working on inventory - what needs to be replaced and what was damaged and destroyed."
The fire exposed some asbestos floor tiling, which could raise the estimate. The entire floor will have to be ripped up and replaced, Mattox said.
"We were O.K. as long as it was covered with carpet, but we're in the process of negotiating what we can do to remove the asbestos tile floor," he said.
The high school staff is still working out of the attendance office and other makeshift offices down the hall from the burned section.
On Tuesday, board member John Aldridge commended the resilience of the administration.
"I felt good about the way we handled everything," he said.
In other action, the School Board:
- Donated bricks from the former Stone Street High School to the reunion classes of the 1930s, '40s, '50s and '60s. The bricks are remnants of a fire that burned down part of the building, which was Dickerson Street Elementary at the time.
- Sold two old school buses for $1,476 and bought two 2003 International 84-passenger buses for $131,952. The money used to purchase the new buses was designated by the state for bus purchases.
- Renewed a three-year lease of the Davenport property to W.M. Whittington III for $3,500 a year.
