Arson at Illinois Planned Parenthood Causes Extensive Damage, Authorities Say

The authorities in Peoria, Ill., are investigating a reported firebombing that they said caused extensive damage to a Planned Parenthood clinic on Sunday, just days after sweeping abortion protections were signed into law in Illinois.

The fire at the Peoria Health Center was reported to the police by a bystander, who noticed an “unknown suspect throwing a flammable item into a public building,” said Semone Roth, a spokeswoman for the Peoria Police Department.

Police officers and firefighters arrived at the clinic, in the 2700 block of Knoxville Avenue, just after 11:30 p.m., but the suspect had already fled, Ms. Roth said. In a statement on Tuesday, the police said that firefighters were able to quickly extinguish the blaze, which was contained to one room, and that one of them had “sustained non-life-threatening injuries.”

A truck used by the person who had set the fire was identified in footage obtained by the police, the department said, but they had been unable to locate it.

Shawn Sollberger, the chief of the Peoria Fire Department, said by phone on Tuesday that investigators were working on an arrest warrant.

He said that the facility, which sustained smoke and fire damage, would most likely be closed for more than a month.

Fire officials estimated the damage at more than $150,000, while Planned Parenthood said it would likely exceed $1 million.

The fire took place two days after the governor of Illinois, J.B. Pritzker, a Democrat, signed a bill protecting those from out of state seeking abortions, as well as reproductive health care providers and patients from legal attacks from neighboring states. Illinois has joined several other states in enshrining legal protections for those administering or seeking reproductive rights care in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade.

“Here in Illinois, we hold certain ideals: Abortion is health care,” Governor Pritzker said in a statement on Friday. “A medical decision should be made between a patient and their doctor — no one else.”

In response to questions about Sunday’s fire, Alex Gough, a spokesman for the office of Governor Pritzker, said the administration had worked to connect reproductive health care workers with resources protecting them from domestic terrorist attacks. “Hate has no home in Illinois,” he said in an email on Tuesday.

Peoria, a city of more than 111,000 people on the Illinois River and about 160 miles southwest of Chicago, has historically been a bellwether for the Midwest and, at times, the nation — a middle ground where businesses and politicians could test their messaging.

But Jennifer Welch, the president and chief executive of Planned Parenthood of Illinois, said in a statement that the state had “become a target as extreme and divisive rhetoric increases.”

Planned Parenthood said that it is working with patients from Peoria to connect them to nearby clinics, and where needed, offer them transportation.

She said that the organization was grateful for the prompt response on Sunday night by firefighters, and the fact that no patients or staff were in the building at the time. She noted that although the clinic did offer the abortion pill, it was not a site for in-clinic abortion procedures. The vast majority of patients, Ms. Welch added, come to the center for family planning, testing and treatment for sexually transmitted infections and other reproductive health care.

She said that the clinic planned to continue providing care to patients, but that the act of vandalism would have “a devastating impact on the community’s ability to access birth control, cancer screenings and gender-affirming care.”