Services today moved as suspicious fire wrecks Sarah Palin's church

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, her husband Todd and up to 1,000 fellow parishioners will worship in a local school this morning after a suspicious fire virtually destroyed the Wasilla Bible Church early Saturday.

The Rev. Larry Kroon said some parishioners were in the church on Nicola Avenue at the time the fire was noticed but no one was injured. Firefighters battled for about eight hours in minus-20 degree temperatures to completely extinguish the blaze that began at the front door.

The former Republican vice presidential candidate went to the church Saturday to apologize to pastors in case the estimated $1 million fire damages, suspected as arson, were "in any way connected to the undeserved negative attention the church has received" since the governor's involvement with John McCain's presidential campaign.

The 30-year-old congregation in Wasilla, about 40 miles north of Anchorage, had moved into its new church just 30 months ago. Church officials said they expect to hold services at the Wasilla Middle School for the foreseeable future during repairs.

— Andrew Malcolm

Register here to receive cellphone alerts on each new Ticket item. RSS feeds are also available here. And we're on Amazon's Kindle too.

Photo credit: Al Grillo / Associated Press (top, church); Robyn Beck / AFP/Getty Images (bottom, Gov. Sarah Palin).

Comments

[brown eyes]

If it is related to her candidacy, that's really pathetic that someone would do that. She doesn't deserve this and her church certainly doesn't either.

[Tyrone]

This woman and her family have been treated beyond bad from the very beginning she was selected by McCain. I can understand people being loyal to Obama, but this obsession to destroy Palin based on that loyalty is extremely disturbing!! To torch a house of prayer, because a candidate when against their candidate?!! Something is immorally wrong with this.

[Tyrone]

This woman and her family have been treated beyond bad from the very beginning she was selected by McCain. I can understand people being loyal to Obama, but this obsession to destroy Palin based on that loyalty is extremely disturbing!! To torch a house of prayer, because a candidate when against their candidate?!! Something is immorally wrong with this.

[Michael Penney]

I'm quite sure this involves the "tolerance" of the libs. As has been said by one smarter than me, there is no intoleramce like liberal intolerance. I will be shocked if this isn't perpetrated by an angry lib.

[Karen]

Why are posters blaming "liberal intolerance" for this? How do you know? Isn't it likely that someone with a grudge of some kind did this? To blame Obama supporters, for example, is ludicrous.

[Bill in SF]

Tyrone - It's not likely that a pro-Obama person wouldn't have done this - Palin helped us win the election by being such an obviously bad choice. Doesn't mean we'd want to hurt the woman. You could just as well blame some Republican for it.

[Devin Brown]

I'm sure it was perpetrated by a lib, and this is coming from a lib, but that's hardly more of a point then that the war in Iraq which has killed hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians iraq was caused by a neocon. "libs" have committed crimes and neocons have, i don't condone arson, but i care much more about war then isolated arson that killed nobody. as far as intolerance goes have we forgotten who it was leading the anti-civil rights movement just fifty years ago, not liberals, that was conservative southern democrats like Strom Thurmond. let's not talk about liberal intolerance without anything to support your argument.

[vi]

Whoever did this is a Criminal, plain and simple, and quite possibly mentally ill in some way as well. Who they may have voted for is irrelevant. Crime is crime regardless of who it is directed against.

No right thinking Democrat or Republican would be anything but appalled by this type of act, and any attempt to score political points by blaming "Liberals" or "Obama supporters" for this is utter nonsense.

[vi]

Whoever did this is a Criminal, plain and simple, and quite possibly mentally ill in some way as well. Who they may have voted for is irrelevant. Crime is crime regardless of who it is directed against.

No right thinking Democrat or Republican would be anything but appalled by this type of act, and any attempt to score political points by blaming "Liberals" or "Obama supporters" for this is utter nonsense.

[pete]

It is quite human to suspect, as these comments do, that the fire was set by an Obama supporter or Sarah hater. Liberals have jumped to such conclusions in other cases. But after a lifetime of watching people do that, I would suggest withholding judgment. Quite often coincidence plays a bigger part in such things than malice. It really seems likely that if it was arson, only a madman would set fire to a building occupied by people who are awake and alert.

[Jerry]

Interesting that you've already figured out who did this. It MUST have been an angry Obama supporter or angry liberal! I guess the police and fire dept. won't need to bother with an investigation now.

[jesus]

Even when the evidence comes back and it's probably her son or his friends or some juvenile, you retard republicans won't bother to retract your statements above. Just like Fox news you blame liberals and then when your wrong...mums the word!

[Roy Howard]

Angry lib?? Umm... we "libs" as you call us WON, remember? We have no need to antagonize Sarah Palin. Granted, there are nut-jobs on both sides of the political spectrum, but COME ON, it's not like she's a threat. She COST McCain the election. I HOPE she runs again - no person with a brain can take her seriously!

The fact that you all are assuming that this attack was politically motivated just shows what brainwashed knee-jerk "cons" you are.

Oh, yes we did.

[Jim]

everyone is blaming liberals for this? Maybe you forgot that liberals won and Gov. Palin hasn't had airtime since election time early last month. They have no reason to hate her - she gave them the biggest victory they have had in several decades.

Besides, considering it was a church directly related to Palin, and Palin has a deal with Hugo Chavez to heat their state, perhaps faulty heating is to blame...It was twenty below, and I don't think anyone has ever equated Venezuelan products with safety or quality...

[Ryan]

Burn the bastard that burnt the church who cares if he/she was a left wing or right wing nutjob or just a regular nutjob may he rot in the darkest deepest depths of hell. While i'm on the point of burning in hell may all right wing and left wing nutjobs burn in hell for screwing up our governmental system so badly to the point we can't accomplish anything simply because one side wont vote with the other. I swear our government looks more and more like a nursry scrhool every time i turn around somenoe is crying that someone else did something someone didn't like so we wont vote for their bill even if it's a good one. I've watched children work out problems better than our politicans. Anyway thats my rant for the day hope you enjoy!!

[Name]

Looks like God noticed.

[John]

It was God giving her a message.

[Rosie]

Most importantly, I'm glad that nobody was hurt. It's a little early to be assessing blame to anyone. This could very well have nothing at all to do with Palin. If someone wanted to hurt Palin, why would they start a fire in a building that she wasn't even in? It sounds more like someone with a vendetta against the church or one of the people who were in it at the time the fire was started.

[Blo BaRT]

Most likely it was an electrical fire and the underfunded municipality could not put it out in time.

[mike]

I think the state trooper did it........after all he's the one with the grudge.

[Kevin]

Who's been trying to drive people out of their jobs or out of business because they voted with the majority on Prop 8? Who plastered posters and stickers supporting their candidate on public property and on other people's private property? Now someone set fire to Palin's church, and I don't think it was an angry moose. There is within the left a large faction of mostly young, self-righteous activists who believe that because they are right, anything they do to promote their cause or to damage their political enemies is justifiable. Vandalism, violence, intimidation, slander... all are OK to them. They are an embarrassment to civilized democracy, which depends on mutual respect, civil conduct, and a firm determination to settle issues by the vote.

[a rational person]

Let me first say that arson is a terrible crime, regardless of what kind of building is destroyed or who does it for whatever motive. The person that did this should go to jail. I assume that since this is so high profile, the arson will be caught fairly soon and they will end up behind bars in a cold Alaskan prison.
But....
"Obsession to destroy Palin"????
"Liberals" could care less about Palin now. She's going to fade into obscurity. She has no political future.
As was stated in an earlier post, Palin was (and is especially now) a non-issue for"libs". After the breif initial spark of republican enthusiasm for her, it quickly faded for the truly intelligent republicans, because they realized what a liability she was for the party as soon as she started speaking without a prepared speech....ie: the Couric interview. That was truly frightening.
The fire was probably set by someone she pissed off in Wasilla well before her nomination by unjustly wielding her power on someone as she did in "TrooperGate". An interview with a radio DJ in the Wasilla area stated that she really is not that well-liked, despite what the people in the lower 48 think, based in part on the biased American media outlets run by republicans - such as Fox.
To automatically assume that this was done by a "liberal" is an utterly ridiculous theory purported by people of low intelligence, but it's an expected response from bible-thumping nut-jobs.
The Church Lady:
"Hmmmm....let's see...I wonder who could have set the fire.....hmmm.....could it be......SATAN?????"

[R. Karch]

It's too bad John McCain hadn't won the election.
Earlier, it was too bad Albert Gore hadn't won in 2000.
We didn't need to invade Iraq, let alone Afghanistan.
Are we trying to do the Middle East and even some of
the rest of Asia what Hilter had
tried to do back around 1940 to Europe, almost destroy
nations completely ?
Why did Colin Powell have to go along with George W.
Bush's idea to invade Iraq? It's not enough that the
President, and earlier, Colin Powell also, have since
regretted not being more critical of the alleged 'intelligence
reports', but helpful that they recognize that some sort of
mistake happened. Even though Colin Powell couldn't
stand up to the President when faced with the President's
ambitions, John McCain has been a proven hero, and
Colin Powell would someday always do the right thing, if
only he had been chosen for Vice-Presidential candidacy.
And then John McCain would likely have won, and
Sarah Palin's Church wouldn't have been firebombed.

[Sixta]

For once it's not a black church in the South (that's the "Lower 48" in Palin-speak) that's the subject of religious intolerance via arson. Intolerant lib? Nah, more likely an angry Repub or NeoCon intrigue, I mean that would be something along the lines of Dick Nixon's "dirty tricks" and Karl Rove's (affectionally nicknamed "Turd Blossom" by Pres. GW Bush) mentor Donald Segretti (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Rove for more details). Possibly the opening salvo in Palin's 2012 POS campaign? No such thing as bad publicity, unless you're O.J. Simpson or Rod Blagojovich.

[Susanne Modeski]

Maybe the fire was set by a witch ... isn't that the church that combats witches?