Fires Break Out at 5 Churches in South; Arson Not Ruled Out

Two black churches were destroyed by fire late Monday night in this northeast Mississippi community, the latest in a series of blazes at Southern churches.

It was not immediately clear whether arson was involved.

The Mount Pleasant Baptist Church and Central Grove Church were deserted when the fires were reported about 9:30 p.m., said an Alcorn County sheriff’s spokeswoman.

Volunteer fire departments had both fires under control by midnight, and an investigation was begun immediately to determine whether the fires were set, the spokeswoman said.

President Clinton has mobilized federal agencies to help local authorities in their investigations of the dozens of fires at black churches in the last 18 months.

Earlier Monday, morning fires destroyed a rural black church in Rocky Point, N.C., and heavily damaged the former sanctuary of a mostly white congregation in Georgia.

State and federal investigators brought in specialists and a trained dog to determine if the blaze at Hills Chapel Baptist Church in Rocky Point was arson. There wasn’t enough information yet to label the fire suspicious, but it fit the pattern of many of the other fires, said Mark Logan, an agent at the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.

The Hills Chapel fire began about 1:20 a.m. Flames destroyed most of the building, leaving only parts of two side walls upright and leveling a dining hall.

The small church, with an active membership of about 35, was founded in 1876, and the building that burned Monday was erected in 1905.

Dogs trained for arson investigations also were used Monday in Pine Lake, Ga., 10 miles east of Atlanta, where fire gutted a former sanctuary of Pine Lake Baptist Church.

Pine Lake Baptist’s congregation is mostly white, with about a dozen blacks out of 1,000 members.

In other cases church fires in the South:

* Two white boys, ages 9 and 10, were arrested on arson charges after a fire that destroyed a storage shed Monday morning at Life Christian Assembly Church just outside North Charleston, S.C. The fire destroyed theater props and folding chairs, charred an outside wall and sent smoke into the Pentecostal church, whose congregation of 120 is evenly divided between black and white members.

* A man arrested in an arson fire that destroyed a predominantly black church last week in Enid, Okla., admitted to federal agents that he started the fire with gasoline, according to an affidavit filed in court Monday.