By HAYLEY
HARMON
6 News Anchor/Reporter
LA FOLLETTE (WATE) - A church family in
Campbell County is searching for answers, after a
fire early Sunday morning destroyed their church.
Fincastle Church of God
burned down just after 3 a.m.
It's located off Old Middlesboro Highway
in LaFollette.
While the church is a
total loss, its congregation says this tragedy has brought them closer
together, as they work to put the pieces back together.
"I've been here 21
years. A lot of memories here at the church," said Reverend Mike Smith,
head
pastor at Fincastle.
Just looking at the flames
shooting out of the church Sunday morning, Smith says he knew it was
bad.
But as daylight broke
and he saw what was left, he discovered it was worse than he thought.
The sanctuary is now completely
gutted, filled only with what remains of what was just yesterday, church
pews.
"You have a lot of
memories and it's just heartbreaking when something like that happens,"
said
Smith.
A sheriff's deputy
driving by saw smoke coming from the church.
When firefighters
arrived on the scene just a few minutes later, they say flames were
already
swallowing the building.
"It was very unsafe
due to roof collapse happening to send crews inside so our crews had to
go to a
defensive attack," said Assistant Chief Daniel Lawson of the Campbell
County
Rural Fire Service.
To make matters worse,
there is no fire hydrant nearby.
"We were having to
shuttle water from three quarters of a mile to a mile away into the
scene so
that was a hamper to us," said Lawson.
They were able to
extinguish it, but not before it burned up just about everything, except
for a
few
Bibles and church records.
The church was decorated
for Christmas because members were supposed to do their Christmas
program at
Sunday's service.
They also just recently
completed $20,000 worth of renovations.
"We just put a new
roof on it about 6 or 7 months ago and we had the inside ceiling
redone," said
Smith.
Smith says the fire may
have destroyed the place this church family has called home for the last
20
years, but he says it cannot destroy the 20 years of memories this
congregation
shares together.
He says they will
rebuild and have a new place to call home.
As to where they'll get
to hold any future services, the community has already reached out to
them.
"Several pastors
have come by and offered us there fellowship hall or their church. We'll
eventually get it back. It'll be a while but hopefully by that time
it'll be
bigger and better," said Smith.
The cause of the fire is
undetermined right now.
Lawson says the state
fire, bomb and arson team will be investigating Monday morning, as part
of
protocol.
The Fincastle Church of God went up in flames on Sunday morning.
The cause of the fire is under investigation.
