Crews monitor hot spots after Gault Middle School fire, detectives investigate videos circulating in community
TACOMA, Wash. - Fire crews were still on the scene of a fire at the old Gault Middle School in Tacoma on Friday night, monitoring hot spots. The fire was reported early Wednesday morning and has destroyed the old building that has been shuttered since 2009.
"We woke up because my dog was barking," said Ely Torres, a neighbor. "I came outside and there was the school on fire."
Torres says if the fire was human-caused, it would not surprise her.
"I believe it because one time I called the police and there were a lot of young people going in there, in backpacks and everything," she said.
Torres has seen people going onto the property and into the building before, many times with troubling results.
"They were homeless trespassing, they were shooting, I heard shooting, I called the police many times," she said.
Meantime, a detective tells FOX 13 that police are looking at some videos that local students have been sharing, showing people starting a fire in a building. Investigators are trying to determine if the videos are related to the Gault Middle School fire.
Right now, it's unclear where the video was shot or who shot it.
Tacoma Fire spokesperson Joe Meineke says so far, the cause of the fire is undetermined and it's unclear if the videos will prove useful to the investigation.
Before a fire ripped through the school, the building had sat vacant for around 15 years. As investigators work to determine what happened, Torres hopes that the school district does something positive with the property.
"Pull the building down and make something useful for the future and the community," said Torres.
Meineke says excavators have been brought in to knock down unstable walls and crews will remain on scene as long as there are hot spots.