Fire guts Boston Hyde Park church

Bosotn, USA -- A five-alarm fire destroyed All Grace Harvest Church in Hyde Park last night, requiring two people to be taken to local hospitals and causing an estimated $1 million in damage, fire officials said.

With smoke and flames rising from the small church's collapsed roof , paramedics took a man who had burns to his head and shoulders to Brigham and Women's Hospital, said Kevin MacCurtain, acting commissioner of the Fire Department. The injuries were not life-threatening.

MacCurtain said the man was in the process of moving into one of three apartments attached to the Hyde Park Avenue church, which, according to church members, was previously called Grace Christian Fellowship.

``It's everything -- we've lost everything," said Oscar Mendez, 61, a church member for seven years. ``It's a sad sight."

Shortly after 7 p.m., Mendez said, he and about 10 other members were in the church, which rents space to Ebenezer Tabernacle, when someone came in screaming about flames and smoke. ``We were singing. Someone in front of the church saw the flames, and they ran inside and called everyone out. We all ran out," he said.

Faith Dela-Seshie, 25, the pastor's daughter and a kindergarten teacher at the church's school, said there are about 50 members of the independently owned , nondenominational church. She said the school has about 20 students, from kindergarten through high school .

Dela-Seshie said she was in the basement when she heard a loud noise. ``I knocked on the door and black smoke slammed into my face," she said. ``I heard people saying, `Get out, get out.' So I ran out."

She said her family, who was at the church nearly every day , is devastated. ``This is our life, this is everything to us."

Reached late last night, her father , Delasie Dela-Seshie, a native of Ghana, said he became pastor of the congregation in 1994. According to the church's website, 15 members of Grace Christian Fellowship founded All Grace Harvest on Easter in 1996, ``with a burden to reach the lost in the Greater Boston area."

At least 70 firefighters worked to douse the fire, which began shortly after 7 p.m., said Scott Salman, a spokesman for the Fire Department. One firefighter was taken to a hospital for heat exhaustion, MacCurtain said.

MacCurtain called the fire ``a total loss" and estimated the damage around $1 million.

He said firefighters arrived to heavy fire on the first floor, which spread to the second floor, and then entered what he called the ``balloon-frame construction," which doesn't stop fire from spreading.

Dela-Seshie said the church would rebuild. He said its members would look for somewhere to hold services. ``It is just a matter of time," he said. ``We will do what we need to get back together."