The Rev. Brian Keller witnessed God's blessings even as he gazed upon the row of three destroyed buildings and the burned-out shell of his 100-year-old Otterbein United Methodist Church on Beaver Falls' main street.

"Nobody died," he said. "A lot of people are safe, so it is not a terrible tragedy."

Indeed, that was the general consensus in the aftermath of a raging early-morning fire yesterday that destroyed half of one side of the 1800 block of Seventh Avenue. So intense, so fast-moving was the blaze reported at 2:14 a.m. that fire officials were surprised that only two of the estimated dozen people who lived in second-floor apartments were injured.

"With the speed of the fire and the size of the blaze, it's amazing no one was killed," said Beaver Falls Fire Chief Mark Stowe.

The two injured residents, who were not immediately identified, were hospitalized with multiple fractures suffered when they were forced to jump from the second floor to the ground to escape the inferno. Their injuries were not believed to be life-threatening.

The damage to the buildings was massive, however. Chief Stowe said initial estimates put the damage at $2 million, and all four buildings involved will have to be demolished. In fact, he already had made arrangements to have part of the church's 60-foot steeple, with noticeable snaking cracks caused by the blaze, immediately knocked down because of safety concerns.

State Trooper Brian Crouch, one of four fire marshals at the scene, said investigators had determined a general area of origin for the fire, but he declined to reveal it. The cause is still undetermined. Trooper Crouch said he could not say whether the blaze was suspicious in origin.

"We have some more interviews to do and a little more investigation," he said.

The displaced residents had lived in second-floor apartments at 1823 and 1831 Seventh Ave. The first floor of 1823 was occupied by a company that dealt in industrial scales and equipment. Next door, at 1831, a clothing and accessories store, The Quality Shop, only open for about a month, was destroyed.

At 1833 Seventh Ave. was a former church parsonage that had no occupants but was used for Sunday school and other church activities. Next to that was the church, at the corner of Seventh and 19th Street.

Chief Stowe said the blaze moved quickly in the rear of the structures where there was wood frame construction covered by Insulbrick, which he said has been called "gasoline siding."

"With that in mind, the fire in the rear of the building spread real quickly from building to building and into the church," he said. "We needed a lot of water to fight that fire," which firefighters from about two dozen departments brought under control by 6:30 a.m.

Across Seventh, a woman came upon the fire scene.

"Oh, my God. That's a shame," she said as she walked through a crowd of people, young and old, that had gathered there. Most stared at the destruction across the street. Some took photographs as the smell of smoke hung heavy in the air hours after the flames were extinguished.

Standing not far from the burned buildings was Sharon Armstrong, one of the residents who escaped the fire. She said she was awakened in her apartment at 1831 Seventh when she heard screams of "Fire! There's a fire!" from her 19-year-old daughter, Santana, and her boyfriend, Clinton Tidwell, who were in another bedroom.

"You could see flames shooting outside my daughter's window," she said. "You could tell it was moving fast. I said, 'Run out of here! Don't worry about anything!'"

She then ran out of the back of her apartment and into an adjacent apartment where her mother, Naomi Jeffries, 76, lived with Ms. Armstrong's 23-year-old son, Zack. She and Zack helped Ms. Jeffries out of the back door to safety.

"Outside, it was total chaos. You could hear people yelling, 'You have to jump! You have to jump!'"

Her mother was doing OK, she said.

"It hasn't hit her yet," said Ms. Armstrong.

As for the church, which has a congregation of about 30, board Chairman Leonard Price said it was too early to say whether members would decide to rebuild or merge with another church in the community.

"My first thought was to build a state-of-the-art church and have other churches join us," said Mr. Price, an Otterbein member for 55 years.

Mr. Price, along with the Rev. Keller, noted that the church really was its people and not its building. In fact, he said, he and his wife, Quina, the church's secretary, lost a home to fire years ago and learned from that experience.

"We realized that it's nothing but brick and mortar," Mr. Price said. "There are a lot of memories here. We still have the memories."