POLICE investigators on Thursday said they were seeking the whereabouts of a 16-year-old high school girl for questioning in connection with Tuesday’s fire in Cassava Piece, Kingston, that destroyed a three-apartment wooden house and a nearby church.

According to the Constabulary Communication Network (CCN), the girl – a fourth form student at a prominent all-girls school in Kingston – was seen entering the house through a window at approximately 3:20 pm, a few minutes before residents discovered the blaze.

Tenants told the Observer Tuesday that the student, along with a schoolmate, went to the house to retrieve some photographs from a male occupant with whom she allegedly was friendly. Both were wearing their uniforms at the time, the tenants said.

The man, the tenants said, told the girl that the house was locked. They said upon hearing this, she left him along with her schoolmate at the front of the yard and went to the back of the building, entering the house after breaking a few windows.

The fire was spotted only minutes after the girls left and quickly engulfed the house before spreading to the nearby Cassava Piece Church of God of Prophecy. Firefighters, who were called to the scene, managed to save a few benches and other items from the church.

Damage to the church – equipment included – was estimated at $4 million while the CCN said occupants of the house suffered losses amounting to approximately $2 million.

On Tuesday, members of the ill-fated church gathered outside the burnt wooden structure and consoled each other with hugs and words of encouragement.

“Remember the message on Sunday! Remember the message!” Pastor Pearline Lawrence hugged and reminded a weeping congregant.

In what could be described as a prophetic message the Sunday before, Lawrence had told her congregation that even though they had been through the water and fire “God will be with us”.

Church minister Helen Wilks said that service will be kept on Sunday – in the “churchyard or on the road”.

“The building may be burnt but the church, which is the members, is alive,” Wilks told the Observer. She said the church had a following of more than 100 members.