SAN ANTONIO — A church that has been serving the community for 60 years was partially destroyed in a fire late Friday night, fire officials said.
Fire crews were called out to Huntleigh Park Baptist Church in the 4600 block of East Houston Street around 11:15 p.m. Heavy fire was already coming out of church building and smoke could be seen from several blocks away. Fire officials said they had to fight the fire from the outside due to the intensity of the flames.
"Being an A-frame building of this size, catching fire, that's the reason we fought it defensively at first," Woody Woodward of the San Antonio Fire Department said. "There was no way we would go inside that building."
No one was believed to be inside the church at the time, and no injuries were reported, but the church was heavily damaged.
"It's my understanding portions of the building may have collapsed or may in danger of collapsing," Woodward said.
KENS 5's Sue Calberg shot this video as she was arriving to report on the story:
Church-goers were also out at the scene of the fire. Lena Taylor has been going to the church for several years. She and other church-goers were shocked by the fire, but determined to look ahead.
"Whatever we look at as something bad, in the end, we know that this church will rise again," Taylor said. "There's been good times, there's been bad times but through it all we have been together so it hurts us. We know the Lord has the final word."
"We're looking at our building burning up, but we already know that that's just the building and the church is inside of us," another church-goer said.
Church members spent Saturday morning combing through the debris of the fire. The photo below shows what the rubble looked like as day broke:
Fire investigators are still looking into the cause of the fire.