CONCORD — A group of people who set a fire to the newly renovated football field at Mt. Diablo High may not even have known that their actions — shooting off possibly illegal fireworks — had resulted in the blaze, police said Wednesday.
The fire broke out sometime early Aug. 24 in the middle of the field, rendering it unplayable for the school’s first scheduled home game Friday. The Red Devils instead will open the season at Concord High in what will be considered a home game.
The Mt. Diablo field had been fitted with a multi-million-dollar field turf in March.
The fire happened after a group of “several persons, possible juveniles” set off fireworks on the field, police said in a statement.
Officials said police and arson investigators reviewed surveillance footage, and it shows the group. Police were working to identify the culprits, a process made difficult by the black-and-white nature of the video and the dark background of the night time.
“There is no way to confirm motives at this point since we don’t even have the responsible parties identified,” Concord police Lt. Kevin Halm said in an email. “However, just based on what can be seen in the video, they may not have even known that their actions started a fire.”
Mt. Diablo scheduled seven of its nine regular-season games at home, including six in a row to begin the year, according to MaxPreps. Its first two home games will be played at Concord, the second a Sept. 5 contest against Vallejo.
“Naturally the first instinct from the kids is that they’re all bummed out,” Mt. Diablo coach Fetuao Mua said Tuesday. “I think the district’s working really hard to make sure we’re out on our field in the next two, three weeks. So, you know, we don’t expect to be away from home too long.”
Staff writer Nathan Canilao contributed to this report.