A devastating fire at the Hole in the Wall Gang Camp in Ashford late Friday reduced to rubble the workshops where children with serious illnesses would spend summer days baking cookies and carving small race cars from wood.

But seeing the damage Saturday — the charred wood beams and piles of twisted tin roofing — camp officials expressed relief that firefighters managed to contain the blaze before it spread to the dining hall and infirmary, which both house works of art that house much of the camp's 32-year history.

They also pledged to rebuild the destroyed "Downtown Camp," a wood-framed building styled like a miniature, Old West city block — an homage to camp founder Paul Newman's film classic "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid."

"The Hole in the Wall Gang Camp has always relied on the support of others, and we will keep the community informed about specific ways they may be able to help in the future," Ryan Thompson, the chief communications officer, said Saturday. The camp caters to children with serious illnesses.

"But for now, we ask people to embrace the spirit of friendship that The Hole in the Wall Gang Camp is founded on, continue to keep our children and families in their hearts, and know that we will rebuild and continue bringing Paul Newman's dream of 'a different kind of healing' to more children with serious illnesses and their families."

The cause of Friday's three-alarm fire has not been determined, according to Ashford Fire Marshal Richard Whitehouse, who is investigating the blaze in cooperation with state authorities.

No one was at the camp when an automatic fire alarm went off just before 5 p.m. Friday. Witnesses soon began calling in reports of a huge column of smoke and flames on the campgrounds, according to fire officials.

When firefighters from several towns arrived at the camp, they found the attached Arts & Crafts, Woodshop and Camp Store buildings ablaze and flames licking at the Cooking Zone. That's where they held the line, preventing the fire from reaching the dining hall.

In daylight Saturday, it became clear how close they came to losing the battle. Only a few inches of unscathed blue paint separated the rest of the Cooking Zone's charred exterior from the porch of the dining hall.

That was the structure Mary Lou Shefsky thought of first when she heard about the fire Friday.

It's in that red, shaker-style barn that the camp displays eight totem poles carved by her late father in law Dr. Howard "Doc" Pearson, the Yale physician who was instrumental in the development of The Hole in the Wall Gang Camp.

Pearson, the camp's medical director from 1988 to 2005, was the first person Newman and the late writer A.E. Hotchner, of Westport, brought on board in 1986. He encouraged them to expand the reach of the camp to serve not only children with cancer but those with sickle cell anemia, HIV/AIDS and other serious blood diseases.

He also recognized that the weeklong summer camp sessions for sick children were exacerbating the loneliness and isolation of their brothers and sisters. The camp launched sessions for siblings the next summer and has since added parent's weekends and a hospital outreach program that brings The Hole in the Wall spirit to children's bedsides.

But that first summer was slow. Only a fraction of the bunks were full, mostly with patients Pearson recruited from his own practice, leaving the former Eagle Scout plenty of spare time to whittle in the Downtown Camp woodworking shop.

By the last session, he'd created a totem pole with creatures and imagery inspired by the stories of the summer. In the middle was a moose with piercing blue eyes, known affectionately as Paul New-moose, after the day someone flung one of Newman's trademark hats high into the air, snagging it on the antler of a mounted, taxidermy moose head.

The tradition of the totem poles continued for more than a decade, as did the nods to Newman, who drove the camp's mission to give children living through pain and heartache a special experience. Newman also was a longtime volunteer counselor at camp.

One year, Pearson's wife Anne painted Newman's vivid blue eyes on a skunk, joking to the movie star that some Southerns call them polecats. Polecat, she said, sounded a little like Paul-cat.

"It's just filled with this kind of sometimes tongue in cheek," Shefsky, of Seattle, said. "But also sometimes absolutely tear jerking. He carved some things that were in memory of campers, and it's just so touching. The camp is just filled with that kind of emotion."

Shefsky also worried Friday about the infirmary, where the walls are covered in murals by longtime arts-and-crafts coordinator Sherry Talley.

"The buildings can be rebuilt, but the murals and the totem poles are irreplaceable," Shefsky said. "They're works of art."

Still, she said the greatest relief among camp alumni is that The Whole in the Wall Gang will go on.

"It is a magnetic, electric place and to feel that atmosphere, it just brings tears to my eyes today," she said. "It's just a safe place, and some kids lived in order to go to camp one more time."

Staff writer Zach Murdock contributed to this report.