CLEVELAND — Crews were on the scene Thursday morning after a fire started at a historic vacant church in Cleveland near East 91st Street and Miles Park Avenue.
The Cleveland Division of Fire told 3News that the fire on Cleveland's east side started at around 7:07 a.m. No injuries were reported. Authorities also closed East 91st Street between Miles Park Avenue and Harvard as a result of the fire.
According to Cuyahoga County property records, the church was built in 1872 and was identified as the former home of the Pentecostal Determine Church of God.
We streamed live video from the scene, which you can watch in the player below:
“Arriving companies found a well-involved vacant church," said Cleveland Fire Lt. Mike Norman. "A lot of fire here. They called in for some additional companies. We have five engines, three ladders and a technical rescue unit working this fire."
Lt. Norman says firefighters were in defense mode, attacking the flames from the outside. The fire has since been brought under control.
Photos of the fire can be seen below:
PHOTOS: Crews battle fire at church in Cleveland
Additionally, Norman told 3News they have been mindful of the possibility of the building collapsing as the church.
At this time, the cause of the fire is under investigation.
3News' Isabel Lawrence reached out to Cleveland Mayor Justin Bibb's office to find out the administration's plans for future of the church. The city provided the below statement.
"The City’s Department of Building & Housing has worked quickly to act on this developing situation. Our demolition contractor is currently on-site working with our Division of Fire to assess the damage and determine next steps, which may include demolition. This is a fluid situation that is still evolving and more information will become available as the investigation continues."
Just over an hour later, the city told Lawrence that the assessment work had been completed and the city plans to go forward with demolition as soon as possible.
Will Tyren saw the fire at the church Thursday morning. Tyren said his family attended the church for generations, and shared memories of his childhood spent there.
"It’s a memory point for you, not to mention a historical point in the city," he said. "So it’s like two things lost at once.”
Tyren said the church had issues with its roof, the congregation ultimately leaving the building a few years ago. However, he said the church community is still close, and that ultimately, the church extends beyond that building's walls.
“Church is not a building, it’s within," he said.
According to local architectural historian Craig Bobby says the church was built in 1873 as a Methodist Episcopal church. "It may have been at first called Newburgh Methodist Episcopal, but otherwise it was long known as Miles Park Methodist Episcopal. It had been designed by Jacob Snyder of Akron, an architect that had become renown for church design," he explained.
Bobby says the site eventually became Miles Park United Methodist church. The congregation did not sell it off until 1979.
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