HUNTINGTON BEACH : Former School Hit by Fire; Boy, 13, Held

Police have taken a 13-year-old boy into custody on suspicion that he and several companions set a fire that tore through a vacant continuation school Thursday.

No one was hurt in the blaze, which burned a structure at the former site of Wintersburg High School at 17200 Golden West Ave. More than 25 firefighters responded to the fire after 1 p.m. and extinguished it in about 25 minutes, Huntington Beach Fire Department spokeswoman Martha Werth said.

The boy who was taken into custody is from Huntington Beach. “Apparently, he came back looking for some schoolbooks he had left,” Werth said.

Police are also seeking as many as five other youths who allegedly participated in setting the blaze.

Flames caused about $140,000 damage to classrooms in the 6,000-square-foot building, Werth said. The fire started in what was a teachers’ lounge.

Investigators believe transients had been living in the tan, one-story building because they found adult-size clothes and a portable radio inside. “We also found adult reading material, for lack of a better term,” firefighter Don Boland said, referring to magazines.

All doors in the building were locked, Boland said, except one leading into the lounge, where the fire is thought to have started. Heat from the fire blew out a window near the room, he said, and melted the goggles of firefighter Gary Durian when he tried to enter the lounge.

Arson investigators poked their heads into rooms Thursday while firefighters soaked down embers that sent smoke wafting from charcoal-blackened tables and tiles. Classrooms had not been used since September, 1991, when the school was closed.

Classes at Ocean View High School, about 200 yards away, were unaffected.