Firefighters were dispatched to Morris Brown College early Thursday morning as flames engulfed Gaines Hall, an historic building on the campus located at the intersection of Northside Drive and Martin Luther King Jr. Drive in northwest Atlanta. According to FOX 5 Atlanta, the fire started around 7:50 a.m. at the structure, known to be the oldest on the college's grounds and a local landmark with a storied backdrop.

The blaze is just the latest misfortune for Gaines Hall, a site previously ravaged by flames in 2015 and twice in 2023. Despite, a call by fire officials to demolish the historically significant but now derelict building, preservationists campaigned to preserve it, leading to it ultimately becoming the property of Clark Atlanta University in 2017. The building, at the time of the fire, was awaiting renovations as part of its listed status among the Georgia Trust for Historic Preservation's 2017 Places in Peril.

In its more prosperous days, the edifice, erected in 1869, was integral to the lifeblood of the Atlanta HBCU community. Gaines Hall also provided temporary refuge for the homeless in recent years. As reported by WSB-TV, the cause of the fire is currently unknown and under investigation by local authorities.