BY SUSAN VELA
The Cincinnati Enquirer
CORINTH -- When Shiloh Community Baptist Church burned to the ground Friday morning, the congregation was greeted with a lot of helping hands.
"We've had a lot of support," the Rev. Floyd Race said.
This morning, he was to lead his 60-member congregation in a service at Meadowview Community Center in Dry Ridge. The building was donated.
The Rev. Dean Brock has offered the use of Unity Fellowship Church in Warsaw, too.
"I wouldn't hesitate to extend the offer," the Rev. Brock said. "We want to do all we can to help."
A state fire inspector has made a preliminary ruling that an accidental electrical fire caused the Corinth church's destruction. A final ruling could be made Monday.
The department responded to the church fire on Shiloh Road, in southern Grant County, at 3:36 a.m. Friday. The 123-year-old wooden structure was "95 percent on the ground" by the time they arrived, Capt. Gary Nipper said.
Volunteer firefighters from Williamstown also responded to the scene. Flames were under control within an hour because so much of it already had burned, Capt. Nipper said.
"It was a total loss," he said. The Rev. Race was heading to his full-time maintenance job shortly after 5 a.m. Friday when he was paged about the fire. He immediately turned toward the church. "There was nothing left, just smoke," he said. "It was pretty devastating and discouraging."
He does not know why the fire began, but he said some electrical wiring was replaced in recent years. He's waiting for the state fire investigator's final ruling. In the mean time, he has begun estimating how much it would cost to build a new fellowship hall, complete with a basement, on the site now burdened with ash and rubble. Congregation members have said they will help in the construction. Other churches, he said, already have said they'd sponsor benefits to help finance a new fellowship hall.
