Arson closes Seattle Buddhist temple, destroys century-old archives

SEATTLE – An arson at the Seattle Betsuin Buddhist Temple near the Chinatown International District destroyed historical archives going back more than 120 years, and has closed the religious and community gathering space indefinitely.

The fire began late on New Year’s Eve.

Earlier that day, around 300 people gathered for a service commemorating the new year, which included a traditional ringing of a large bell 108 times, marking the number of earthly desires that a Buddhist must overcome on the path to seeking nirvana.

Alex Sakamoto, a minister assistant and temple board member, stayed after the service into the night with four other members.

Shortly before 11 p.m., the temple’s fire alarm went off. As Sakamoto and the other members evacuated, they saw smoke coming from the basement area. Outside, fire trucks and police cars filled the street outside, and Sakamoto saw a man put in handcuffs nearby.

Seattle police arrested a 42-year-old man at a home he broke into about a block away from the temple. According to court documents, he told an officer he has paranoid schizophrenia and believed he was being followed by the federal government. “So I went into that church, and I’m sorry I started a fire,” he said, according to documents.

He told police he found the temple doors open, so he went inside to a room in the basement where he came across a large amount of liquor bottles and propane tanks. He was moving the items to barricade himself when the fire began and he ran outside.

Video surveillance footage showed the man breaking in the front doors around 9:50 p.m. and leaving about an hour later.

“The scary part is he was in the building for almost exactly one hour,” Sakamoto said Wednesday. “He was down in the basement, and we didn’t realize it. We were in the building at the same time.”

He said he did not recognize the man, and that temple staff don’t believe the fire was a hate crime. “We just think it was someone that was trying to seek shelter inside,” Sakamoto said.

Seattle Fire Department investigators ruled the fire was intentionally set. Seattle police have referred the case to the King County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office requesting charges of second-degree arson and burglary. The man is being held at the King County Jail on $40,000 bail. The Seattle Times typically does not name people who have not been charged.

On Tuesday, a member of the temple was driving by when they saw smoke and alerted temple leadership, who called 911. Firefighters extinguished a smoldering fire in the basement, after it had rekindled, according to a department spokesperson. Rekindlings are rare, he said, but can occur when combustible debris is close to where the fire occurred.

Just outside the room where the fire began were the temple’s physical archives dating back to 1901 when the temple was founded by first-generation Japanese Americans. The current location was built during World War II in 1943. The destroyed archives contained documents from when temple members were detained in incarceration camps.

“By losing this, we’re losing this knowledge and history,” Sakamoto said.

He said most of the temple was damaged by smoke and water from putting out the flames, including the nokotsudo where urns of deceased members of the temple are located. A large altar located in the hondo, or main hall, will need to be sent back to Japan to be restored.

Sakamoto added that the fires in the basement may have damaged the building’s structural integrity. The temple, which has been home to not only religious services, but memorials, community markets and Boy Scout troop meetings, is closed indefinitely.

“Even if people don’t belong to our church, or they’re not Buddhist, this has really been a gathering spot in the community and really just like a sense of home because it’s just always stayed in the same place and remained unchanged for so long,” Sakamoto said.

The temple is accepting donations on its website, seattlebetsuin.org/fire, to help rebuilding efforts.