The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms has joined aninvestigation into suspected arson at a church in northeast PikeCounty.

A fire at Spring Beulah Church of Christ on D.P. Guy Road, aboutfive miles south of the Lincoln County line, apparently burneditself out Sunday before it caused extensive damage to thebuilding. The church was under construction after being destroyedby a fire of undetermined origin in 2004.

“The ATF is going to be assisting us in this case. They came inlast night,” said Pike County Sheriff’s Department ChiefInvestigator Davis Haygood. “The ATF works a lot of fires.”

An investigation team of the sheriff’s department, state firemarshal and the ATF are pursuing leads into the cause of the firetoday, Haygood said.

The investigator said it did not appear that accelerants wereused, but added that would be for the fire marshal or ATF todetermine.

“We’re still investigating what was used and how it was set,” hesaid.

The fire flared among boxes and other flammable objects on site,but lumber was not involved, Haygood said.

It was readily available since the church was still underconstruction, he said. Construction on the new $1.2 million churchwas begun in March 2005 and was scheduled for completion thissummer.

“They had everything framed up, walls and a roof, but it stillneeded quite a bit of work inside,” Haygood said.

The fire was contained to the fellowship all area at the rear ofthe church, he said. It was discovered when the church’s financialsecretary, Gwen Nunnery, and her husband Thad visited the church tocheck on some construction work done earlier in the day.

Investigators are attempting to determine if Sunday’s fire couldbe related to the 2004 fire at the church or to a string of churcharsons in Alabama. Haygood said the ATF believes it is unlikely thefire is related to the Alabama arsons.

“They don’t feel like they’re connected in any way,” hesaid.

However, the possibility of a link between the earlier fire andthe recent one has not been dismissed.

“Any time we have an incident at a similar location, we’ll lookback at the other incidents to see if they’re related,” Haygoodsaid.