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Mesmerizing Drone Footage Shows Extensive Flatiron Church Destruction
By
Nathan Tempey
Published May 4, 2016
Modified May 4, 2016
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Jen Chung/Gothamist
By
Nathan Tempey
Published May 4, 2016
Modified May 4, 2016
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Fire department officials say that candles that weren't fully put out probably ignited the fire that gutted the landmarked Serbian Orthodox Cathedral of St. Sava in the Flatiron District on Sunday.
An FDNY spokesmen told reporters that investigators are no longer calling the blaze "suspicious." Congregants and observers were worried that the inferno may have been connected to recent church fires in Australia and Russia, and that they may have been deliberately set as part of a dispute over Pope Francis's recent decision to postpone the canonization of Croatian Aloysius Cardinal Stepinac. Instead, fire officials say, it appears that the church's caretaker thought he had extinguished several hundred candles following an Orthodox Easter luncheon, but when he stashed the candles in a box under some wood furniture, some were not totally out.
The luncheon ended around 3 p.m., and no one noticed the fire until 7 p.m., even though there was a flea market going on next door, the New York Times reported. By the time firefighters ran in, the choir platform had collapsed, indicating the fire had been growing for a while.
"You don’t get a fire like that in 10 minutes," spokesman Francis Gribbon told the paper.
It's unclear at this point whether the building is structurally stable and can be restored, but that's the church's goal. Church leadership is raising money on its website here, and they warn supporters to "beware of any unofficial and fraudulent online donation seeking campaigns."
And here is the mesmerizing (and informative!) drone video of the church post-fire, from Slate.
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Serbian Orthodox Cathedral of St. Sava
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