Boligee, Ala. – Fires damaged or destroyed four more Baptist churches across the Alabama countryside Tuesday, less than a week after a string of five blazes that were ruled arson.
Church member Johnny Archibald said smoke was pouring from Morning Star Missionary Baptist near Boligee when he arrived around daybreak.
“They had kicked the door in,” he said. “Evidently they had set the pulpit on fire and went out the front door.”
Tuesday’s fires took place at churches off rural roads, about 10 to 20 miles apart. They were in a cluster of three counties, about 60 miles from the Bibb County area where the five other churches were burned early Friday.
Chip Burrus, acting assistant director of the FBI, said investigators were working on the assumption that the nine fires are linked.
The churches that burned included both white and black congregations.
Authorities have no suspects or motive, Burrus said in Washington, D.C.
Rich Marianos, a spokesman for the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, said more than 50 agents have been assigned to the investigation in Alabama. “This is our No. 1 priority nationally,” he said.
The fire that damaged Dancy First Baptist Church early Tuesday in Pickens County appeared to be arson, Sheriff David Abston said.
He said volunteer firefighters responded to a burglar alarm that went off at 5:13 a.m.
Ragan Ingram, a spokesman for the state insurance agency that oversees fire investigations, said investigators were pursuing several leads in last week’s fires, but “the leads haven’t led us to a specific suspect or a motive.”
Investigators took tire impressions from the mud of a dirt road in Sumter County near Galilee Baptist, one of the churches destroyed Tuesday.
Morning Star Missionary Baptist was burned down to its foundation Tuesday, leaving only the front steps and handrail standing. The other two were damaged. In the Bibb County fires, three churches were destroyed and two damaged.
Ingram said there have been 59 church fires in Alabama in the past five years, including the nine reported in the past four days, and 19 were ruled arsons.
The FBI said it is looking into whether the Bibb County fires were civil-rights violations under laws covering attacks on religious property.
State and federal rewards totaling $10,000 have been offered.
