GREELEYVILLE, S.C — The Rev. John Taylor feared the worst when he learned his church was on fire, only days after a mass shooting at a black church in Charleston.
The Mount Zion African Methodist Episcopal Church was burned to the ground by the Ku Klux Klan in 1995. But Taylor also recalled the fierce lightning storm that blew through town about the time the fire began Tuesday night. “I really thought it probably was a lightning strike.”
Preliminary indications suggest the Mount Zion fire was not the result of arson, according to a federal official.
More than a half-dozen fires at black churches have burned in the days since a white gunman was charged in the shootings of nine churchgoers.
Investigators have determined that several were intentionally set, but have yet to announce any evidence of racial motives.
An average of 31 houses of worship burned every week from 2007 through 2011, according to a 2013 estimate. About 16 percent of church fires are intentionally set.
