Officials at the Episcopal Church of The Redeemer in Bryn Mawr are crediting firefighters for getting to the scene quickly before the fire caused more damage to the 143-year-old church.
Coincidentally, when the fire alarm call came in around 8:30 Monday night, nearly every member of the fire department was at the station finishing up a weekly meeting and having a chicken soup dinner. 16 firefighters were on scene in less than three minutes. The fire chief thinks the response time was one of the big reasons the church was saved.
"We were coming to a fire alarm. 99 percent of the time, there’s nothing to the fire alarm other than some sort of faulty system. When I saw the smoke from the roof, the first thing I thought about what was the church having a service," said Bryn Mawr Fire Chief Dan Kincade.