Church Fire Causes $700,000 Loss : Emergency: Parish hall, kitchen and library at St. Patrick’s are destroyed. But sanctuary and treasured windows are spared.

A coffee maker in a church hall ignited a blaze that sent flames leaping 50 feet into the night sky, causing $700,000 in damage to the building, but miraculously sparing the sanctuary and stained glass windows.

Although the precise cause of the fire that destroyed the pipe organ, parish hall, kitchen and library was unknown, investigators said Thursday that the electric coffee maker was the “point of origin.”

None of the 32 firefighters who battled the fire Wednesday night was injured, and officials at St. Patrick’s Episcopal Church credited their heroic efforts for saving the sanctuary.

Volunteer Barbara Perham wiped soot off the processional cross near the altar Thursday, marveling that firefighters confined the powerful blaze to the back of the building. She pointed to a lighted candle in a wall sconce nearby.

“The sanctuary light didn’t go out,” she said, her voice cracking with emotion. “So long as it’s burning, Christ is here.”

The Rev. David Davidson, who was the first to arrive at the church Wednesday night, and lay assistant Brad Burr also praised the firefighters.

“They are the real heroes here,” Burr said.

The fire destroyed the music library and damaged the 2,000-pipe organ and Christmas music that choir members were using during rehearsal barely an hour before the fire broke out. Without the music, it is unclear whether the choir will be able to perform its Dec. 16 Christmas program, including parts of “Messiah.”

But music director Eric Laurie, who was the last to leave the church Wednesday night after choir practice, was undaunted.

“We’ll figure out a way to do it,” he said. “We don’t know how yet, but we want to keep the spirit going.”

The Ventura County Fire Department received a call at 10:12 p.m., shortly after Laurie and the 20-member choir had gone home.

Off-duty firefighters from Los Angeles County were returning from a retirement dinner and saw the flames, officials said.

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They surveyed the church to assess the blaze, saving Ventura County firefighters a valuable few minutes, a county fire official said.

The six engines and two ladder trucks that responded to the call contained the fire in 45 minutes, though they were at the hillside church until 4 a.m. checking for embers, said Ventura County Fire Department Capt. Tony O’Hagan.

“The back of the church was well involved, with 50- or 60-foot flames,” he said. “Our crews made a good aggressive interior attack and held the fire to the rear portion and out of the sanctuary.”

The 38 brilliantly colored stained glass windows--installed in the sanctuary with donations from parishioners over 10 years--were not damage. Officials had no estimates on their value, except to say that they were worth “thousands and thousands of dollars.”

Had the fire reached the sanctuary, the wooden pews that seat 300 people and the wood floor altar area would surely have burned, a church official said.

But it was the back of the 34-year-old building that became engulfed in flames, sustaining $700,000 in damage, county fire officials said.

There, fire investigators Dave Chovanec and Bill Hager combed through the rubble Thursday, reconstructing the elements they thought were responsible for the fire.

They said church members had noticed a chemical or acid smell in the kitchen and lounge area. The members had even thought it might be a dead mouse.

But investigators said the smell might have been the forerunner to the fire.

“Maybe the heating element was eating away at the frame,” Hager said. Among what remained of the kitchen counter and lounge area was a blackened tin with small charred square objects inside.

“Care for a cookie,” Hager joked, holding out the tin.

Chovanec said insurance investigators would further analyze the coffee maker to determine how the fire began.

He said, however, that he doubts the wiring was at fault.

Meanwhile, church officials Thursday were looking for ways to remove the fire smell from the church and to make the building safe to hold services.

“I’m hoping we can be back as soon as Sunday,” Davidson said.