Fireworks shot off by someone who trespassed onto a closed Cobb park the night of July 4 caused a fire that resulted in hundreds of thousands of dollars of damage to county property. Cobb commissioners on Tuesday will vote on a contract to rebuild the park facilities damaged by the resulting fire.
"(Noonday Creek) park was closed and locked and secured as we do any park, but someone, we can't tell if it was a resident or who, went into the closed park, so they were trespassing, and used our parking lot to shoot fireworks, and it was fireworks that caused this damage," said Cobb Public Services Director Jackie McMorris.
The fire caused a "substantial" amount of damage to a maintenance building and pole barn at the park, which were deemed a total loss, according to county documents. Commissioners will vote on a nearly $366,000 contract with Osprey Management for design and build construction services to rebuild the facilities.
The construction contract is almost half of the estimated $736,200 value of the destroyed structures and their contents, of which $250,000 will be paid by the county's claims fund, while insurance proceeds are expected to reimburse the remaining balance of the loss, according to county documents. The total cost in the wake of the fire is expected to increase, as the heat of the flames also damaged three park maintenance vehicles parked near the facilities, McMorris said.
"They were parked outside the building, and it burned one really bad, and then another one was really singed that was parked next to it," she said. "At this time, the office is still looking at the cost of replacing those vehicles and any ancillary expenditures."
No one so far has been charged in connection to the blaze, said Lt. Dan Dupree, spokesman for the Cobb Fire Department.