Vandals Use Books to Set 4 Fires at School : Sun Valley: Damage is estimated at $25,000 after blazes in 4 rooms of Roscoe’s administration building.

Vandals broke into a Sun Valley elementary school Sunday, then used books and papers as kindling for four fires that caused $25,000 in damage, authorities said.

No arrests had been made by Sunday evening in the arson that damaged four rooms in the administration area at Roscoe School, said Bob Collis, spokesman for the Los Angeles Fire Department.

Firefighters were alerted to the blaze about 5:20 p.m. by a caller who spotted smoke billowing from the school, Collis said.

About 30 firefighters fought the fire, chopping through the roof in order to vent the smoke from the administration building, he said; it was extinguished by 5:42 p.m. No one was injured.

The vandals set fire to books, papers and files in four rooms in the administration building, Collis said.

“They took the contents in the file cabinets and lit them on fire in the middle of all four rooms,” he said.

The walls of one room were scorched by the flames, and the other three rooms had smoke and water damage, Collis said.

The fire caused $10,000 in damage to the rooms’ contents and $15,000 in damage to the structure, he said.

Officials on Sunday evening were trying to determine the exact damage to the school in the 10700 block of Strathern Street. School officials generally try to repair vandalism as quickly as possible and get schools back to normal, said Shel Erlich, public information officer for the Los Angeles Unified School District.

“It obviously causes a lot of disruption to the program, not just in terms of office files,” Erlich said.

“Kids come to school on Monday morning and teachers come in and they see part of their school is torn up or damaged. For little kids especially, it kind of makes your world topsy-turvy for a few days.”