UPDATED 10:05 p.m. Central—The historic sanctuary of First Baptist Church of Dallas, the church led by Pastor Robert Jeffress, caught fire on Friday night. The cause remains unknown, though the fire comes less than one week after an attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump, of whom Jeffress has long been an impassioned supporter.
“Dallas Fire-Rescue is currently battling a two-alarm fire in a building located at 1717 San Jacinto Street,” Chief Robert Borse told The Daily Signal. “The initial call was received at 6:05 p.m., and crews arrived on scene at 6:09 p.m.”
“The fire has been knocked down and contained,” Borse said in a 9:46 p.m. update. “The structure has largely collapsed, which has caused many void spaces with ‘hot spots.'”
“While there is no indication that the fire will escalate, DFR is expected to maintain an extended presence on the scene to extinguish all lingering areas of fire and to maintain a safe perimeter around the unstable building,” he added.
The department confirmed that the secondary chapel of the First Baptist Church is the structure involved.
“Fire operations are defensive and a partial collapse of the structure occurred just after 7:30 p.m.,” Borse added.
“A little bit after 6 p.m. we got word that the church was on fire, our historic sanctuary,” Jeffress told an ABC News local affiliate. “This sanctuary has been around since 1890. It was the home for our church for a long time.” First Baptist Dallas moved to a new worship center about 12 years ago.
“This historic sanctuary was the site of many personal events, including my own,” Jeffress recalled. “I was baptized there when I was six, I was ordained for the ministry when I was 21, it holds a lot of memories, but we thank God that nobody has been hurt. We had just concluded vacation bible school with over 2,000 kids. They were all gone, so God has protected us through all of this.”
“I am grateful that the church is not bricks and mortar or wood, it’s people, and the people of God will endure,” he added.
First Baptist Dallas has 16,000 members, according to its website. The church is part of the Southern Baptist Convention, the second-largest Christian denomination behind Catholicism.
The pastor said that “nothing has been ruled in or out at this point.”
According to the Dallas Fire-Rescue website, 64 fire teams were working to combat the fire as of 9 p.m. Central.
Purported footage of the church on fire went viral on social media.
The fire comes one day after the Republican National Convention ended in Milwaukee. At the convention, Republicans nominated Trump, who had barely survived an assassination attempt on Saturday.
Jeffress has long praised and prayed for Trump, publicly appearing with him at events as far back as September 2015.
This is a breaking story and will be updated.
