Related Content

VIDEOS: Clovis fire testing

---

– All Job Categories –  Accounting Admin & Clerical Automotive1 Banking1 Biotech1 Broadcast - Journalism1 Business Development Construction Consultant Customer Service Design Distribution - Shipping Education Engineering Entry Level Executive Facilities Finance General Business General Labor Government Health Care Hotel - Hospitality Human Resources Information Technology Insurance Inventory Legal Legal Admin Management Manufacturing Marketing Nurse Other Pharmaceutical Professional Services Purchasing - Procurement QA - Quality Control Research Restaurant - Food Service Retail - Grocery Sales Science Skilled Labor - Trades Strategy - Planning Supply Chain Telecommunications Training Transportation Warehouse

Cities like Clovis have replaced their steel-and-sandbox playgrounds with plastic equipment nestled in rubber ground cover, improving safety and access for the disabled.

They also created something unexpected: fire hazards.

In the past two years, arsonists have ignited plastic play equipment and the rubber bark beneath it at three Clovis parks. A fourth playground also was damaged by fire. The tab: $110,000.

Other Valley communities -- including Fresno, Hanford and Chowchilla -- have confronted similar damage from fire and other acts of vandalism.

Officials are frustrated, but say they can only do so much to limit the damage. Clovis is planning to use stepped-up police patrols and cameras to monitor some of its playgrounds in hopes of curbing arson. Fresno has employed night crews to patrol parks. Since the patrols began three years ago, vandalism is down, said Tony Hernandez, a city parks supervisor.

But fires still occur. In April, a blaze damaged a playground at Fresno's Hinton Center. The park equipment, some of which was plastic, was not yet 5 years old and will cost $50,000 to replace, city officials say. The cause of the fire is undetermined.

Even with the night patrols, the city can't stop all vandals, Hernandez said.

"If they want to damage city property, they will find a way to do it," he said.

Playground equipment was once made largely of indestructible steel swimming in pools of sand. The bars might bruise an arm or chip a tooth, the slides might sear unprotected skin in the summer, and the sand might become a way station for defecating cats. But the equipment never caught fire.

The Americans With Disabilities Act, designed to broaden access for the disabled, and state efforts to find uses for recycled tires brought change to the playground.

"When ADA got in the picture it created other challenges because it required an opportunity for kids who are physically challenged," said Fred Brooks, a Chico-based consultant who serves on a statewide playground safety committee.

The ADA, Brooks said, led to an overhaul in equipment design and parks' surfacing. Plastic and fiberglass replaced steel; plastic is more prevalent because it's cheaper than fiberglass and easier to work with. And sand was replaced with wood chips, rubber bark or rubber-based padding.

The state's Integrated Waste Management Board encourages using rubber bark -- shredded tires -- because the practice recycles tires from landfills, said Jordan Scott, a state spokesman. Rubber bark, he said, is more shock absorbent than wood chips and sand.

But flammability, he acknowledged, is a problem.

"The bottom line is there is not a whole lot we can do about arsonists," he said.

He said the state is considering a flammability study to compare rubber bark with other surfaces.

Clovis, which has used rubber bark for many of its parks, is looking for a less flammable alternative. Last week, the city did its own test comparing rubber bark, a rubber mat made of ground-up tires (called a "pour-in-place" pad) and wood chips.

Of the three, the rubber bark burned higher, faster and longer.

"Once it starts burning it will sustain itself," said Dan Guice, Clovis deputy fire chief. "It's not a rapid growth, but it's steady."

In a fire last month at a newly renovated playground at Dennis and Holly avenues in Clovis, a witness said he first saw a fire in the rubber bark and within minutes it was igniting a slide and climbing apparatus, Guice said.

Some Valley cities, like Hanford and Visalia, have avoided rubber bark because of fire concerns. Visalia uses wood chips at its parks. Hanford uses wood chips or rubber mats.

Clovis and Fresno unified school districts use wood chips at many of their school playgrounds, although Fresno also uses rubber mats or rubber bark at schools with large numbers of disabled students. Both school districts have had fires in the last several years that damaged playground equipment.

Last week, vandals piled wood chips around play equipment at Fairmead Elementary School south of Chowchilla and set the pile on fire. About half the playground went up in flames, said Karen Guillemin, a Cal Fire spokeswoman. The equipment "had plastic components with aluminum, and the fire melted both," said Paul Alderete, Chowchilla Elementary School District's interim superintendent. Damage was estimated at about $30,000.

Jay Milles, a state-certified playground safety inspector from Clovis, said there is no perfect material to use beneath playground equipment because all the most popular products catch fire.

He prefers cedar wood chips, but they compact, requiring maintenance teams to add more.

Said Milles: "We can't watch our playgrounds and schools 24 hours a day and unfortunately this is where the kids feel at home and where they know they are not going to get caught."