Daycare suffers smoke, heat damage in fire

The Nature Childcare Center on U.S. Highway 2 suffered an electrical fire Saturday night. The fire didn’t destroy the building, but it did do heat and smoke damage to the building and supplies inside, leaving it temporarily inoperable, according to Aleigha Russell, who works at the center.

Fire Chief Rick Hagen said the fire started at a battery charger. The security system somehow detected the fire, perhaps the smoke moved some papers. Once the alarm went off, police and the owners arrived. Hagen said they put the fire out by dumping a water cooler over the fire. The building and all the equipment inside had heavy smoke damage.

She said the center is currently looking for a temporary place to operate that can accommodate 80 children and 30 staff, and have items that are needed immediately such as pack and plays, rock and plays, high chairs, activity mats, blankets, clothes, microwaves, play yard gates, art supplies (crayons, markers, paper, glue, etc.) changing table cushions, clocks, and book shelves.

In short, virtually everything inside had smoke damage and was ruined.

The center is taking donations at its facility at 1500 Ninth St. West and Russell has set up a gofundme account at https://www.gofundme.com/team-nature-daycare.

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