DANA POINT : Investigators Call Church Fire Deliberate

A fire that destroyed the Sunday school building of South Shore American Baptist Church on Monday was deliberately set, fire investigators said.

A neighbor in the 32700 block of Crown Valley Parkway who heard dogs barking about 1:30 a.m. awakened to a fire at the church with flames 30 feet high and called for help, said Capt. Dan Young, spokesman for the Orange County Fire Authority.

The blaze began in a large plastic bin that was filled with clothes to be donated to the homeless, Young said.

It took 40 firefighters about 50 minutes to control the blaze, which charred the church’s Sunday school classrooms, offices and a kitchen, firefighters said.

“A little classroom at one end [of the building] was left,” Young said, “but even that was heavily damaged by smoke.”

Damage was estimated at $300,000. Investigators found evidence that someone had set the clothes bin on fire.

“There’s no other reason for the fire,” Young said. “There was no electrical or mechanical malfunction. And we know it could not have been accidental, because there was no one in the church doing anything at that hour.”

Congregation members spent Monday salvaging what was left of the 5,000-square-feet building and making plans for Sunday, a church spokeswoman said. “We’ll probably need some kind of a trailer,” she said. “This has been devastating. It’s like it was happening in your own family.”