This is one of the classrooms used by the Saugatuck Nursery School. This classroom is located on the bottom floor, in the rear of the church.

Photo Credit: Vanessa Inzitari

This is a portion of the choir room, located on the top floor, in the rear of the church. Most of the roof collapsed during the fire.

Photo Credit: Vanessa Inzitari

The church's steeple is seen from the inside of the choir room, which sustained the most fire damage.

Photo Credit: Vanessa Inzitari

This is the inside of the choir room, where the most fire damage occurred.

Photo Credit: Vanessa Inzitari

A fire-damaged piano is still inside the choir room. Betsy Gillespie, a church trustee, said it was black before the fire.

Photo Credit: Vanessa Inzitari

WESTPORT, Conn. – The extent of damage caused by the Nov. 20 fire at Westport's Saugatuck Congregational Church could be seen from the inside for the first time Thursday afternoon when church officials escorted news media on a tour.

The six-alarm fire broke out in the rear of the 179-year-old church just before 10 p.m. The heaviest fire damage was to the choir room on the top floor, where a portion of the roof collapsed. Betsy Gillespie, a church trustee, said 21,000 sheets of music were lost in the fire, as were five pianos, two organs, including the building organ, and one harpsichord.

The first and second floors below that area were the most affected by water and smoke damage. These areas included the Saugatuck Nursery School classrooms, the kitchen, Hoskins Hall — where the church holds its annual Thanksgiving and Christmas feasts — and a meeting room that was converted into a classroom about two months before the fire. It cost about $80,000 to remodel that room, said Mary Ann West, communications liaison for the church.

The sanctuary and the recently renovated education wing were spared by the flames thanks in part to two separate firewalls. These firewalls, Gillespie said, contain double the sheetrock of a normal wall, and block out fire for up to two hours.

"It's safe to say we could have lost the entire structure without those," said John Walsh, chairman of the Board of Trustees.

However, because it took about six hours for the fire to be fully extinguished, Gillespie said the firewalls alone wouldn't have been enough to protect those areas. But thankfully, she said the fire department knew where the firewalls were located and concentrated water around them to keep flames away.

The rest of the church sustained some water, soot and smoke damage, said Walsh. Although he didn't know how long it would take for the church to reopen, he said cleanup has already begun.

"It's been extensively cleaned and deodorized these past couple weeks," Walsh said during the tour. Despite the progress, the smell of charred wood still lingered in the air, especially leading up to the choir room.

The cause of the blaze has not yet been determined, and it's still being investigated, Walsh said.