Please send any additions or corrections to me. I'm looking for information concerning fires in Scientology buildings, especially around the times that the church was planning a move. So far I've heard of several such fires (note: some of these are not verified but were reported to me by email):
1) a fire in England.
2) a fire in Tucson Arizona in the mid 1970's at Ability Center, Inc. No mention of whether the fire was attributed to arson or not
3) the Paris Org fire near 1975 or 1976. Paris was wanting
to move at the time (they did some two or three years later in fact), and some
fire started in the last stair. Part of the roof burned, and the ugly burned
things were left on the street during some months! The repair was not done before
months neither.
The well known anecdote on this is that a preclear was in session, and said
his auditor: "There is fire under the door". As the auditor was not
facing the door, he said his preclear "Okay, I'll repeat the auditing question",
till he knew it was not "origination " in the usual sense! roger gonnet
<dictionnaire@hol.fr>
4) 1977 a fire in the Bank Building purchased by Scientology. (Tampa Tribune, May 19, 1977 "Scientology fire empties offices at Clearwater")
5) a fire in Toronto Canada in January of 1978, allegedly caused by a copy machine.
6) The church's old headquarters in Caulfield Australia was destroyed by fire in March, 1980. The Age (Melbourne), 16 Jul 1980, p1, 4
7) an arson in Pasadena California in 1980.
8) a fire in the Minneapolis MN mission, date unknown but sometime in the 1980's (Star Tribune December 1, 1994)
9) a fire in the Ft. Harrison Hotel, in Clearwater, allegedly caused by children (St. Petersburg Times 12/29/85 "Fire forces evacuation of 400 person")
10) a fire in the Gray Moss Inn in Clearwater Florida in the 80's (the church bought the Gray Moss Inn).
11) a fire in Hacienda Gardens in Clearwater Florida in 1986.
12) an arson in Costa Mesa California in 1987.
13) a small fire here in Phoenix Arizona around 1991. A sign was placed on the building that said something like "we've had a bit of a fire and will open again later." This building was never again used by the church and is now a rental property.
14) The above photo is from S Street in Washington DC. The church was planning its move to the Frasier Mansion just a few blocks away in 1996. Before the move was completed this fire occurred.
15) February 10, 1998 it was announced on alt.religion.scientology that Munich Germany Scientology buildings were raided by the police in search of information regarding suspicious fires related to the Church of Scientology.
16)unknown date: San Francisco Mission fire (from Wayne Whitney)
17) a fire-bomb in Florida, unsolved but Scientology blamed critics.
Another fire happened in a company owned by one of Scientology's largest contributors, the Feshbachs. An arson fire at Cocolat Company, California, 1991 was considered one of the reasons the company went under. (The San Francisco Chronicle April 7, 1993)
(last update 2/29/08)