The Kane County Cougars’ bus was set on fire and destroyed Thursday while the Geneva-based baseball team was in Canada for a series against the Winnipeg Goldeyes, according to police.
No one was injured, and a 15-year-old girl has been charged with arson in connection with the incident, according to the Winnipeg Police Service in Winnipeg, Manitoba.
The visiting Cougars, who play in the American Association of Professional Baseball, were in Winnipeg for a stretch of three games this week, defeating the Winnipeg Goldeyes on Tuesday but taking a loss to the Canadian team Wednesday.
In the early hours of Thursday morning, at around 1:50 a.m., general patrol officers from multiple districts responded to the Cougars’ bus fully engulfed in flames while parked at Goldeyes Stadium, according to the Winnipeg Police Service. The Winnipeg Fire Paramedic Service extinguished the fire, but the entire bus and its contents were destroyed.
A bystander had observed a person inside the bus and assisted in removing them, police said, but no one was injured in the fire.
Upon police arriving, two teenagers were taken into custody in connection with the incident, the Winnipeg police said.
Investigators from its major crimes unit believe the fire was deliberately set, police said, and one of the teenagers — a 15-year-old girl — is facing charges of arson causing damage to property and possession of incendiary material. She has since been released and turned over to a responsible adult, the Winnipeg police said on Thursday.
The 56-passenger bus is valued at around $425,000, according to Jackson Greteman of Iowa-based Windstar Lines, the team’s bus company.
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“We are very disappointed that this could happen to our family-owned company, and the loss of this vehicle will impact our business and operations,” Greteman said in an email on Friday.
“We are happy that no one was hurt,” Greteman said.
Curtis Haug, the Cougars’ vice president and general manager, confirmed on Friday that “everyone is OK and only some gear and personal property was lost.”
The team ultimately came back to defeat the Goldeyes 12-5 later in the day on Thursday.
The Cougars’ bus was a charter bus, Haug said, and the team was able — with the help of Goldeyes general manager Andrew Collier — to secure a bus that took them from Winnipeg to Fargo, North Dakota, for the team’s games this weekend against the Fargo-Moorhead RedHawks.
The Cougars have since coordinated with the team’s bus company, Windstar Lines, to send a bus to Fargo for the team. That bus will bring the Cougars back home to Geneva on Sunday evening, Haug said.