By DICK CLEVER and MARTA MURVOSH

CONCRETE — Valerie Stafford watched as fire crews tried to douse the last remnants of the fire that gutted her old schoolhouse Sunday. Concrete’s fire chief called the blaze “suspicious.”

“I went to first grade there,” said Stafford, who is president of the Concrete Chamber of Commerce and public relations director for United General Hospital.

For many, the old three-story schoolhouse on Main Street represented memories of childhood. For others, it was an eyesore.

The building had stood empty for much of the past two decades except for occasional efforts by its most recent owner to recreate it as a medieval castle — a project that was all but abandoned several years ago.

One by one, as the fire grew in intensity through the afternoon, each of the three uncompleted castle “turrets” fell in flames to the ground.

Five fire departments, including Concrete, Burlington, Sedro-Woolley and two rural fire districts, responded to the blaze, which was reported about 1:45 p.m.

Concrete Assistant Fire Chief Jim Past said his department was on the scene almost instantly.

“We could see smoke coming from the building when we got there,” he said.

The building was fully engulfed in flames within the next 20 minutes, he said.

Concrete Fire Chief Rich Philips was at the Mariners’ baseball game at Safeco Field in Seattle when he heard of the fire. A friend who had accompanied him to the game got a call on his cell phone that came with a photo of the burning building.

Philips left the game and was on the scene of the fire by midafternoon. He said the origin of the fire has to be considered suspicious.

“It’s suspicious because there is no power to the building,” Philips said. “I can tell you people have been breaking into it, and we’ve been boarding it back up.”

Skagit County Fire Marshal Dan Cain will investigate the cause of the fire, Philips said.

Cain said it probably would be sometime Monday before investigators can safely enter the building.

As the fire raged, the wood-frame roof of the building collapsed, then the floor beneath it fell. The thick, second-story floor joists added fuel to the fire, burning furiously as they fell to the floor.

A ladder truck from the Burlington Fire Department, equipped with a high-pressure nozzle, poured water steadily into the building from above, while fire crews on the ground saturated the structure with foam.

Philips said firefighters knocked down the main blaze and some flames that ignited in nearby woods. They sprayed water on hot spots and worked to keep a smaller section of the building from catching fire, he said.

Embers from the old school building landed on the roof of a shop on Main Street, igniting a small blaze that was quickly extinquished by fire crews.

About 12 Concrete firefighters were expected to take turns resting and working to ensure the fire doesn’t flare up again, Philips said.

“We’ll probably be here all night,” he said.

The concrete and wood building was constructed in the late 1930s for the Concrete School District. School district leaders sold the structure after moving to the current location next to Concrete Airport.

Fire Districts 8 and 10, including Punkin Center, Birdsview and Grassmere, as well as the Burlington Fire Department with a ladder truck, helped Concrete with firefighters and equipment.

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