Arson suspected in weekend church fires

A church building of the Church of Jesus Christ,

Latter-Day Saints (Mormons) in the Kaleva district of Tampere was

gutted by a fire in the early hours of Saturday. The blaze was brought

under control by eight AM.     

A fire also occurred at the Lappee Church, an historic wooden Lutheran

churh in Lappeenranta early on Sunday, causing fairly little damage

before it was brought under control. Both fires are believed to have

been deliberately set.     

Three people were detained in

connection with the investigation into the Tampere fire. No names were

given out, but police said that the three were all born in the 1970s.

The three were released after a few hours.Pauli Mäkelä, the head of the police investigation, said that police have not ruled anything out.     

Two smaller suspicious fires were also reported in Tampere Friday night, and police are investigating possible linkages.     

The alarm was made Saturday morning

at 4:55. The fire apparently began in a storage area on the outer wall

of the building, and spread from there to the sheet-metal-plated roof.

The roof of the Mormon church was completely destroyed, and burning

debris from the roof caused the flames to spread into the interior.     

The rescue department says that there were no people inside. A number

of apartment buildings are located near the church building. The

closest is just ten metres away, but as the wind was blowing away from

them, they were unharmed.     

Firefighters urged local residents to keep their windows closed because of the thick smoke.