Fire Devastates Restored 92-Year-Old Woodlawn Church

By Rachel Cromidas in News on Oct 7, 2015 4:30PM

An extra-alarm fire has devastated a historic Woodlawn church Wednesday morning.

Fire officials said the Shrine of Christ the King Church, at 64th Street and Woodlawn Avenue on the South Side, caught fire Wednesday morning and required about 150 firefighters to fight the flames and they shot through a collapsed roof.

Fire department spokesman Larry Langford told the Tribune that the fire appeared to be accidental and was fully put out by 9 a.m. The church had been undergoing restorations this fall and workers varnished the inside of the church last night, but no one was in the church or injured when it caught fire. A nearby shelter was evacuated during the fire.

The historic church was significantly damaged by a fire in the late '70s, according to the Tribune, and was nearly closed before a religious organization offered to fundraise for its renovations. That context makes this fire, which destroyed some of their recent work, particularly tragic.

The Fire Department shared live updates of the effort to put out Wednesday morning's fire on Twitter: