Alabama authorities Friday suspected arson in fires that swept through six local churches, completely destroying three of them, said state Fire Marshal Richard Montgomery.
Five Baptist churches caught fire early Friday, all within 10 miles (16 kilometers) of each other in Bibb county in the central part of the southern state.
A sixth church in neighboring Chilton county was damaged by fire Thursday afternoon.
"Based on the proximity of the churches and the timing of the fires, they are classified as highly suspicious," Montgomery said in a statement.
The investigation had only just begun, and authorities had no information that pointed to racial motives behind the fires, they said.
Ragan Ingram, an assistant to Montgomery, said that one of the five Bibb country churches had a predominantly black congregation, while the other four were mainly white.
All of the churches were located alongside key roads, officials said, making it easy to set them afire with incendiary devices from a car.
However, according to witnesses, the fires appeared to start from the pulpit area of the churches, Ingram said.
In the 1950s-1960s US civil rights battle, a number of black churches were burned by opponents of equal rights for African-Americans.
During 1995-1996, more than 30 mostly black-congregation churches across the US southeast were set on fire in a series of arson attacks. While many were considered racially motivated, justice authorities found no direct link between them.
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