Castro Elementary School volunteer Ed Quidachay installed software for an automated library book checkout system last week.
But Monday the library had no books left to check out. Or computers, for that matter.
All that remained Monday after a $250,000 weekend fire that destroyed Castro's 7,000-volume collection sat in a cart outside Room 14 - a bust of Martin Luther King, Jr., a book about castles and two charred, damp copies of "Crystal & Gem."
"Basically, the whole collection was destroyed," said Principal Galen Murphy.
A shaken campus began instruction Monday beside the smoky remains of Saturday's blaze, which authorities call suspicious. It probably began inside a pair of wheeled recycling bins set outside in front of the room's windows, said El Cerrito Fire Marshal William Capps.
"They were melted all the way down, so we're thinking the fire began outside" in those bins, Capps said. "The containers are large and made of plastic. Materials placed inside these bins would not ordinarily combust by themselves."
Firefighters found no obvious signs of arson but considered the circumstances suspicious enough to warrant close investigation, Capps said. Investigators on Monday interviewed teachers and others who were on campus Friday night.
The fire probably started hours before a neighbor called 911 about 5:45 a.m., authorities said, but after anyone with school business left. The fire melted the library's windows but did not damage the brick and concrete building's structure.
"We were lucky that way," Murphy said. "The building could have been totally destroyed."
Three fire engines and a ladder truck from the El Cerrito and Richmond fire departments brought the fire under control at 6:15 a.m.
PTA vice president Nelda Welten arrived Saturday morning with her daughter Gabriella, 7.
The girl burst out crying. Welten, who volunteered in the library on Wednesdays, joined in her tears.
"We don't have music. We don't have sports," Welten said. "All they have is the library."
Quidachay, site council co-chairman, pulled up about 8 a.m. Saturday to see firemen and a clean-up crew hauling burned books from the wreckage.
"All the prizes for the Word Wizard were gone," Quidachay said. Those were the T-shirts, magnets and bookmarks meant to be reading contest awards.
Welten's husband's soccer team raised $194 for the school at a benefit barbecue Sunday.
"It's going to be hard ... to recreate the library and it's going to take some time," said Janet Abelson, El Cerrito's mayor pro tem.
"And that's time children at the school will not have access to those services. It hurts all the kids when something like this happens."
Staff writer Alan Lopez contributed to this article. Reach Shirley Dang at 510-262-2798 or (mailto:sdangcctimes.com) sdangcctimes.com.
How to help:
Money to help rebuild the Castro Elementary library and its collection can be sent to the Castro Library Fund, c/o Mechanics Bank, 9996 San Pablo Ave., El Cerrito, CA 94530.
Police ask anyone with information about the fire to call 510-215-4400.
Distributed by the Associated Press
