A 10th Alabama Church Torched

A weekend fire at a Baptist church was ruled arson Sunday, the 10th in a recent string of blazes set at churches in rural Alabama, authorities said.

The Saturday afternoon blaze severely damaged the Beaverton Freewill Baptist Church in northwest Alabama, near the Mississippi line.

“It’s definitely arson,” said Ragan Ingram, a spokesman for the state fire marshal’s office, which was investigating whether the fire was connected to the other blazes that had destroyed or damaged nine churches since Feb. 2.

Saturday’s fire in Lamar County was the only one that wasn’t set in the predawn hours.

Investigators have said they don’t know a motive, but there is no racial pattern.

Five of the churches had white congregations and five black. All were Baptist, the dominant faith in the region, and mostly in isolated rural settings.

Last week, Gov. Bob Riley said the nine earlier fires appeared to be linked, as investigators checked out witness reports of two men in a sport utility vehicle near a number of the fires.

On Sunday, a federal investigator said authorities believed that two white men were responsible for the fires.

“They’re not youths or teens,” said Eric Kehn, a spokesman for the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. “It’s probably someone in their 20s or 30s. We believe they’re pretty much inseparable. They’re something like bosom buddies.”

Evidence from one of the earlier fires indicates the arsonists may have been briefly trapped inside the building and may have been hurt, said Jim Cavanaugh, regional director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.