Fire Causes Extensive Damage At St. Cloud Catholic School

ST. CLOUD -- Damage assessment continues Friday after a fire broke out at a St. Cloud Catholic school. The fire was reported at about 5:40 a.m. Thursday at 1615 11th Avenue South at St. Elizabeth Ann Seton.

Assistant St. Cloud Police Chief Jeff Oxton says the cause of the fire is still unknown, and an official damage estimate has not been determined.

The fire was isolated to the vestibule area and adjoining hallway, including the ceiling above that area

He says they are looking at surveillance video in the area and using electrical engineers to assess potential electrical causes.

Catholic Community Schools Superintendent Lynn Grewing says she was inside the building yesterday and saw a lot of fire and smoke damage.

There is fairly extensive damage in two classrooms, and then besides that, there's smoke damage throughout at least one wing of the school, perhaps beyond that.

Grewing says the plan is to get an insurance adjuster in the school today to assess the damage, and then they can hire a restoration company to start cleaning up.

The fire department is also continuing to assess and estimate how much damage was done to the building.

She says the school is used as a daycare in the summer.

St. Elizabeth is used in the summer for kid care, and we are going to try and make arrangments for that -- it's essentially daycare for the summer -- either with one of our other schools or another site, we're going to work on that today.

The pre-school through 6th-grade school has a little over 100 students and Grewing says she is telling the parents of those kids they are hoping to be ready to be open by the start of the school year in the fall.

Anyone with any information regarding this incident is asked to contact the St. Cloud Police Department at 251-1200.