VIDEO: A massive fire at a West Philadelphia church is finally under control after several hours. The blaze caused parts of the building to collapse onto the street.
The three-alarm blaze erupted on Tuesday afternoon at the Greater Bible Way Temple on the 1400 block of North 52nd Street. Fire crews remained at the scene the entire night monitoring hot spots.
There has been no official cause of the 3-alarm blaze yet but work was being done on the roof shortly before flames broke out.
“We’re worried about collapses, so there are parts of the building that have already collapsed into it, we have parts of the building collapsed out onto the street, so we’re sort of in a standoff mode,” Fire Commissioner Adam Thiel said.
It was a blaze so hot that firefighters were not able to get inside the historic church.