A Brainerd church escaped serious damage last night from what appears to be vandalism.
A fire at the entrance to a classroom could have caused extensive damage, but it went out on its own.
It was a typical Monday morning at Brainerd United Methodist Church, with a pre-school going on and various church activities.
But at the back of the original sanctuary building, someone broke the glass out of a door to a classroom and set a fire inside.
Fire units responded.
Fire marshals are taking a close look at the incident.
DAVE AKERS, CHAIRMAN, BOARD OF TRUSTEES "Well, we had a minor fire in one of our sunday school rooms last night ..But we've reopened, back serving the community ..We're open for business."
The main fire damage was to the inside of a French door, and there was evidence that glass panes had been broken out.
DAVE AKERS "The alarm went off and the fire department was here in a couple of minutes, and as you can see there was very, very little damage."
The flames apparently went out before firefighters arrived. Smoke damage was light.
Akers says a repair crew is due to begin work Wednesday.
BRUCE GARNER, SPOKESMAN,CHATTANOOGA FIRE DEPT. "We received notice of the fire after church about 11:30 last night . When firefighters arrived, they did find a small fire, actually part of it inside the church. They got the fire out very, very quickly..without much damage to the church, in fact estimated damage was about 4-thousand dollars.
An investigation into the cause is still going on, according to Garner.
Spokesman Dave Akers says incidents like that are rare at the church.
No one was hurt.
Some parts of Brainerd United Methodist date back to the early 1900's.
The church has updated and added-on over the years, but the Sunday school class section was built in the 1950's.
