Arson investigators from the Los Angeles Hearth Division are combing by the charred and smoldering stays of Victory Baptist Church on Sunday morning after the neighborhood landmark in South Los Angeles was destroyed by a hearth.

The blaze broke out at 2:22 a.m. Sunday, in accordance with Nicholas Prange, spokesperson with the hearth division, and quickly grew to main emergency standing requiring response from a minimum of 16 firms.

Two firefighters sustained accidents whereas preventing the blaze throughout a battle that lasted for 2 hours, mentioned Prange. They had been contained in the church when one turned trapped by a collapsing ceiling and partitions. A mayday name was initiated, and the firefighter was rescued and brought to a hospital with reasonable accidents. The opposite firefighter sought therapy for delicate accidents after the incident concluded.

Victory Baptist Church, which couldn’t be saved, has performed a significant position within the non secular and political historical past of South Los Angeles.

Based in an area storefront on Easter Sunday in 1943 by 14 members of the group, the church moved into its present constructing a yr later. Its choir featured 75 members, and within the Fifties, its Sunday evening companies had been broadcast on tv nationally.

The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. spoke on the church in 1964. Visiting singers included soprano Dorothy Maynor, gospel singer Mahalia Jackson and singer and actress Ethel Waters.

The church is now the scene of an energetic arson investigation, which incorporates the Home of Worship Process Drive, a multi-agency effort that seeks to establish and seize people who goal church buildings in Los Angeles.