{"id":23742,"date":"2023-06-05T20:22:23","date_gmt":"2023-06-05T20:22:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news24feed.com\/?p=23742"},"modified":"2023-06-05T20:22:24","modified_gmt":"2023-06-05T20:22:24","slug":"investigators-announce-cause-of-fire-that-destroyed-historic-spencer-church-boston-25-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news24feed.com\/?p=23742","title":{"rendered":"Investigators announce cause of fire that destroyed historic Spencer church &#8211; Boston 25 News"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<p class=\"default__StyledText-tl066j-0 rQkyc body-paragraph\">SPENCER, Mass. \u2014 Investigators announced Monday that lightning is to blame for a fire that destroyed a historic church in Spencer on Friday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"default__StyledText-tl066j-0 rQkyc body-paragraph\">The six-alarm blaze engulfed the First Congressional Church on Main Street within minutes, prompting a massive emergency response that included more than 80 firefighters from about 18 departments, according to the Fire Bureau status<\/p>\n<p class=\"default__StyledText-tl066j-0 rQkyc body-paragraph\">Smoke could be seen from several surrounding towns as flames consumed the bell tower, causing it to collapse and crash to the ground.<\/p>\n<p class=\"default__StyledText-tl066j-0 rQkyc body-paragraph\">The Rev. Bruce MacLeod, interim pastor of the First Congregational Church of Spencer, told Boston 25 that the building is all wood and dates from the 19th century, which is why it burned so quickly.<\/p>\n<p class=\"default__StyledText-tl066j-0 rQkyc body-paragraph\">No one was inside when the fire started.<\/p>\n<p class=\"default__StyledText-tl066j-0 rQkyc body-paragraph\">In 1862, the church building was also destroyed by fire but was rebuilt.<\/p>\n<p class=\"default__StyledText-tl066j-0 rQkyc body-paragraph\">The church has a small congregation of about 30 people.<\/p>\n<p class=\"default__StyledText-tl066j-0 rQkyc body-paragraph\">Download the FREE Boston 25 News app for breaking news alerts.<\/p>\n<p class=\"default__StyledText-tl066j-0 rQkyc body-paragraph\">Follow Boston 25 News at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/Boston25News\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Facebook<\/a> i <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/boston25\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Twitter<\/a>.  |  Watch Boston 25 News NOW<\/p>\n<p class=\"default__StyledText-tl066j-0 rQkyc body-paragraph body-copyright\">\u00a92023 Cox Media Group<\/p>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><br \/>\n<br \/>[ad_2]<br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.boston25news.com\/news\/local\/investigators-announce-cause-raging-blaze-that-destroyed-historic-church-spencer\/FFPTI4FNRZEJZA5YDNI6EMZ4CA\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>SPENCER, Mass. \u2014 Investigators announced Monday that lightning is to blame for a fire that destroyed a historic church in Spencer on Friday. The six-alarm blaze engulfed the First Congressional Church on Main Street within minutes, prompting a massive emergency response that included more than 80 firefighters from about 18 departments, according to the Fire Bureau status Smoke could be seen from several surrounding towns as flames consumed the bell tower, causing it to collapse and crash to the ground. The Rev. Bruce MacLeod, interim pastor of the First Congregational Church of Spencer, told Boston 25 that the building is&#8230; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":23743,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23742","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-videos"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news24feed.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23742","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news24feed.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news24feed.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news24feed.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news24feed.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=23742"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news24feed.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23742\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23744,"href":"https:\/\/news24feed.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23742\/revisions\/23744"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news24feed.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/23743"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news24feed.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=23742"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news24feed.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=23742"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news24feed.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=23742"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}