By Elizabeth Cloutman

Athree-alarm fire gutted a Los Altos Hills church before dawn Sunday. Officials are investigating the possibility that the blaze, which caused an estimated $1 million in damage, may be the result of a hate crime.

Many members of the Antiochian Orthodox Church of the Redeemer are of Middle Eastern descent, including some Palestinian-Americans. Agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms were expected to begin an investigation Tuesday after the Town Crier went to press.

“The ATF responds anytime there’s a fire in a house of worship,” said Marti McKee of the San Francisco field division of the ATF. McKee explained a federal task force was begun in the mid-’90s to try to determine the reasons for an increase in assaults on houses of worship. As a result, the ATF works with local police and fire departments to determine the cause of these incidents.

McKee said a task force of about 18 national ATF agents are scheduled to work with local agents and the Santa Clara County task force to determine the cause of the fire at the Magdalena Avenue church. “In this particular case, there was such a large amount of damage and a large amount of debris, it will take a number of resources to determine exactly the cause and the origin of the fire was,” McKee explained.

The county fire department received a call that the church was on fire at 4:45 a.m., Sunday, according to a department spokeswoman. By 4:50 a.m., firefighters from the Loyola station were on the scene. The fire was extinguished at 6:29 a.m. and the entire church campus was roped off as a crime scene.

Santa Clara Sheriff’s Office deputies stood watch at the scene Monday morning as local ATF agents began a preliminary investigation. “The ATF is in charge of the investigation,” said Terrence Helm, a Santa Clara County media specialist.