|
The
blaze erupted at about 6 p.m. eastern time at the Fountain of
Life Center in Florence Township, New Jersey, northeast of
Philadelphia, local ABC-6 reported. Dark plumes of smoke could
be seen for several miles around.
"It's a devastating loss," Russell Hodgins, a senior pastor at
the Fountain of Life Center, told the station.
Hodgins told local media that crews were still attempting to
save an attached school building. More than 100 firefighters and
other emergency responders were at the scene.
"Firefighters did a tremendous job of trying to stop the fire
interiorly. It was just the size of the building the amount of
fire that was here - we had to switch our operation to a
defensive operation," Robert Tharp, the administrator of the
Florence Township Fire District, told CBS-6.
There were no immediate reports of injuries and it was not clear
what ignited the blaze.
The Cherry Hill Courier Post said the church, which opened in
1974, has 1,000 members. Its campus includes a school, worship
space and family life center, the newspaper said. A cause has
not yet been determined, the newspaper said.
(Reporting by Dan Whitcomb and Sharon Bernstein; Editing by
Sonali Paul)
[© 2023 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.] Copyright 2022 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Thompson Reuters is solely responsible for this content.
|
|
