'We are strong': Carol Stream church rallies after Nativity fire that put itself out

Mary Lou Gabl likes to say her church is "small but mighty."

That parish bond at St. Luke Catholic Church in Carol Stream has helped worshippers come together early this year after a fire left smoke damage throughout the sanctuary.

The blaze started about a week ago in an area to the right of the altar depicting the church's Nativity scene. Only one figure from the Christmas season display survived nearly intact: a baby Jesus, now charred.

"The walls look terrible, the floor - it's a mess," said Gabl, the parish office secretary.

But Gabl finds reassurance in what she believes is a "Christmas miracle." The church doesn't have sprinklers, but the fire went out on its own, preventing a loss that could have been much worse.

"Someone was on our side with this one," said Debbie Templin, another office secretary and a parishioner for 40 years.

It's not clear exactly when the fire started in the church along Cochise Court, but it likely broke out sometime between the evening of Dec. 29 and the next day.

Templin came to St. Luke to take out the recycling about 5:15 p.m. that Sunday and didn't see any evidence of fire.

"Everything was as it should be as far as I was concerned," she said.

On Dec. 30, St. Luke held an afternoon class in one of its classrooms around 4 p.m. Someone who wanted to light a candle went into the church, smelled smoke and called the fire department, Gabl and Templin said. But at that point, there was no fire.

The blaze does not appear suspicious and actually burned out in an area of the church that butts up against a concrete block wall, which kept the fire from spreading, said firefighter-paramedic Greg Schwarze, a public education coordinator for the Carol Stream Fire District.

"I believe that it really ran out of fuel," he said. "The whole Christmas display, Jesus in the manger, all of that burned up."

The church typically keeps the doors to the sanctuary closed, which also likely kept the heat from the fire in one area, Schwarze said.

"There was a lot of heat," he said. "There was soot, black soot and smoke damage throughout the entire sanctuary, and so it did get hot, but really the church ceiling was high enough and the heat was able to dissipate enough."

The official cause of the fire is undetermined, Schwarze said. An unattended candle probably was the culprit, but fire investigators don't have a witness to confirm that.

"We can't rule anything specific," he said.

The sanctuary also did sustain some heat damage as shown by the blistered paint on a section of the ceiling.

"A lot of soot and ash everywhere," Templin said. "It got in everything."

Damage estimates are unavailable. By the end of the week, the parish hopes to find out how long repairs will take and what costs will exceed the church's insurance coverage, Gabl said.

"We are strong, and we will come through this because we care about our church," Templin said.

St. Luke serves about 450 families. Parishioners have been celebrating Mass with a temporary altar and chairs set up in classroom space.

"People are still coming and supporting the church, and it's working out well," Templin said. "We're a very strong parish. I like to say we're small but mighty."