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The fire, at the
Briar Creek Baptist Church, was estimated to have caused more
than $250,000 worth of damage, the Charlotte Fire Department
said in a statement.
"We completed our work on the scene and determined this was
intentionally set," Charlotte Fire Department Senior Fire
Investigator David Williams said.
The department said the flames were brought under control within
about an hour and 15 minutes, but one firefighter was taken to a
local hospital and another was treated on scene after battling
the blaze amid "extremely hot and humid conditions."
The fire came a week after a white gunman entered an historic
African-American church in neighboring South Carolina and killed
nine people during a Bible study session.
The shooting at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in
Charleston came amid months of intense debate over U.S. race
relations after unarmed black men were killed by police officers
in Ferguson, Missouri, New York City, Baltimore and elsewhere.
Williams told the local Charlotte Observer newspaper that
investigators were attempting to establish if the fire was set
as a hate crime.
The newspaper said the church was predominantly white when it
opened in 1951 under another name, but shifted to becoming a
black church over the past few decades as the area's
demographics changed.
(Reporting by Curtis Skinner in San Francisco; Editing by
Dominic Evans)
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