PROVINCETOWN - The Cape-tip community's Catholic church was destroyed this morning in a three-alarm fire.
By 10 a.m., the roof of St. Peter the Apostle Church was gone, the steeple had fallen into the smoldering interior and water was cascading into the building's smoking shell from a ring of ladder trucks.
By 10 a.m., the roof of St. Peter the Apostle Church was gone, the steeple had fallen into the smoldering interior and water was cascading into the building's smoking shell from a ring of ladder trucks.
Firefighters from as far away as Brewster and Harwich fought through snow-choked Route 6 to get to the fire at the church on Prince Street, north of Bradford Street, near the town's high school.
The fire didn't spread to the nearby rectory, a worry at one point, nor to the church annex building.
There were no reports of injuries.
(Staff photo by Vincent DeWitt)
population at the time. Today there are fewer and fewer fishermen, and the parish is composed of a great melting pot of the peoples of this town. The Parish is open, loving, and welcoming to all who profess their faith in Jesus Christ and in His Holy Catholic Church," according to the church's online history.
Several parishioners were already vowing to rebuild the church, constructed in 1874.
Fighting the fire were firefighters and rescue personnel from Provincetown, Truro, Wellfleet, Eastham, Orleans, Brewster, Harwich and possibly other towns.
(Staff file photo by Kevin Mingora)
WCVB photo The sanctuary of St. Peter the Apostle in Provincetown sits open to the elements after a fire destroyed the roof and steeple of the church.
"Our tabernacle, which sits inside our church and contains the Blessed Sacrament which Catholics believe to be the body and blood of Jesus Christ, is intact. It's in place. Everything else around it is burnt, but it is sitting in place. That is a great sign of hope for all of us," St. Peter the Apostle Rev. Henry Dahl said.