ANOTHER BLACK CHURCH TORCHED : BLAZE AT NORTH CAROLINA FACILITY BRINGS TALLY TO 30 IN 18 MONTHS.

Byline: Daily News Wire Services

Fire investigators used dogs Friday to try to sniff out clues to an arson fire that destroyed a 93-year-old wooden sanctuary, the 30th fire at a Southern African-American church in the past year and half.

Federal investigators on the scene stopped short of saying whether the fire Thursday night was related to the previous burnings.

``All I can tell you right now is we are working very hard to get to the bottom of this,'' President Clinton told reporters in Washington. White House officials said Clinton was prepared to announce ``a series of measures to intensify the investigation'' of the fires during his radio address today.

Meanwhile, a South Carolina church filed suit Friday against a white supremacist group over one such case of arson last year.

Federal agencies, spurred by complaints from civil rights groups, are investigating more than two dozen fires at small churches with African-American congregations.

The Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department is preparing federal criminal charges against two members of the supremacist group, who are being held in connection with the fire and one other arson at a African-American church, law enforcement officials said.

But the civil suit, filed by the Macedonia Baptist Church against the Christian Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, based in North Carolina, unsheaths another weapon to stop the fires - the possibility of crippling damage awards against organizations that advocate violence against African-Americans, said Morris Dees, head of the Southern Poverty Law Center, which is representing the church.

The lawsuit, filed in South Carolina state court, is likely to be the first of a series. Randolph Scott-McLaughlin, vice president of the Center for Constitutional Rights, which is working with the National Council of Churches and the Atlanta-based Center for Democratic Renewal to stop the church burnings, said that his group was planning a number of similar civil suits.

The sanctuary in North Carolina, which dates to 1903, was used only to store old pews and other things on the grounds of Matthews-Murkland Presbyterian Church. The mostly African-American 175-member congregation worships in a new building 100 yards away.

The church was planning to renovate the building and use it as a wedding chapel or for other community activities. It estimated the loss at $150,000.

Investigators said the fire had been set. They did not say how.

``We won't say it's connected to the series of fires, but we're just getting information from the scene,'' said Mark Logan, agent in charge for the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.

Gov. Jim Hunt authorized a $10,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the arsonist or arsonists.

Church member Timothy Funderburk, who lives across the street from the burned-out building, was convinced that someone torched it.

``I hate to prejudice somebody, but this was set. I've seen too many things happen here,'' he said as he looked at the pieces of the charred remains of the white-clapboard building.

Mayor Pat McCrory urged people not to make rash judgments about the fire.

``Nothing so far at all connects to this fire to any of the other church fires across the South,'' McCrory said.

Five people have been arrested in the other fires. But authorities have said they have found no evidence of a national racist conspiracy.

The church is nestled into seven acres in one of the city's most affluent and predominantly white neighborhoods.

The Rev. Larry Hill, the church's pastor, said his church had received no threats. ``It's painful to see things like this still happening in 1996,'' he said. ``Right now we're praying for genuine healing within the nation and the world.''

According to a tally of cases the ATF considers ``open,'' six African-American churches have burned in Tennessee; five each in Louisiana, South Carolina and Alabama; four in North Carolina; three in Mississippi; and one each in Virginia and Georgia.

The Southern Poverty Law Center said it sent letters Friday to the governors of Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky and Louisiana, asking them to appeal to business and professional groups to set up a large reward fund to help find those responsible.

``Most of the 34 churches burned since 1989 are small, rural houses of worship. Their congregants are people of modest means. They are the most vulnerable and the neediest,'' wrote Morris Dees, co-founder of the nonprofit civil rights organization.

CAPTION(S):

Photo: Rev. Larry Hill looks over the remains of his Charlotte, N.C. , church.

Associated Press