By JAY REEVES
The Associated Press
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| Firefighters spray water on the remains of Ashby Baptist Church Friday near Brierfield, Ala. The church was one of five hit by a string of suspected arsons, in Bibb County, Ala., overnight. (AP Photo/Jay Reeves) |
CENTREVILLLE, Ala. — Fires damaged five rural Alabama churches in a string of suspected arsons late Thursday and early Friday.
The fires were set “as fast as they could drive from one location to the next,” Bibb County Chief Deputy Sheriff Kenneth Weems said of the cluster of blazes, all near U.S. 82 and Highway 139.
Most of the churches were Baptist and all were in Bibb County, about 25 miles south of Birmingham.
Another Baptist church in nearby Chilton County also burned on Thursday, but it had been undergoing construction, which could have been a source of the fire, said Ragan Ingram, a spokesman for the state insurance agency that oversees fire investigations. That church, New Harmony Holiness Baptist in Fairview, was destroyed in the fire.
No arrests had been made in the blazes by Friday morning.
In 1996, race was a factor in a series of arsons that damaged rural black churches in Alabama and elsewhere. But Ingram said the fires late Thursday and early Friday destroyed both the churches of predominantly black congregations and predominantly white congregations.
The Ashby Baptist Church in Brierfield, Rehobeth Baptist Church in Randolph and Pleasant Sabine near Centreville all burned to the ground, Weems said.
The other two churches, Old Union Baptist in Brierfield and Antioch Baptist in Antioch, were damaged.
Jim Parker, a member of the Ashby Baptist, told WBRC television in Birmingham that he understood the fire began near the pulpit and that the fires at other churches had a similar pattern.
At Old Union Baptist, the Rev. David Hand said the fire was discovered about 4:30 a.m. and extinguished before it could cause serious damage.
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