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BIRMINGHAM, Ala., April 9 — Three former college students who set fire to churches in rural Alabama in February 2006 were sentenced to prison on Monday on federal arson charges.

The defendants apologized for the fires, with one of them saying that the incidents followed a night of drinking and deer poaching.

“This is the close of a chapter, but not of the book,” Judge R. David Proctor of Federal District Court told the young men. “I hope that you will all find a way that, when that last chapter of that book is written, some good will come of this.”

Two of the defendants, Benjamin N. Moseley and Matthew L. Cloyd, were sentenced to eight years and one month for setting nine fires over two nights. The third defendant, Russell L. DeBusk Jr., who was involved in only the first five fires, was sentenced to seven years.

All three were also sentenced to five years of supervised release, 300 hours of community service and $3.1 million in restitution payments to the burned churches.

Two firefighters were injured battling one blaze, resulting in a mandatory minimum sentence of seven years.

“I am very sorry for all of the destruction and suffering I caused,” Mr. DeBusk told the court.

He described the first night as an evening that began with drinking and poaching deer. Then, he said, “building off of each other’s energy,” the first fire caused a “snowball effect” that led to further arson.

“I woke the next morning and was absolutely petrified,” Mr. DeBusk said.

He did not join the other two men four nights later, when they set four fires in another part of the state in an effort to confuse the authorities.

Mr. DeBusk’s lawyer, Brett Bloomston, added: “There was absolutely no contemplation of any injuries occurring. Had there been any contemplation at all, none of these acts would have occurred.”

At the time of the fires, Mr. Moseley and Mr. DeBusk were 19 and sophomores at Birmingham-Southern College, where they were well-liked drama students. Mr. Cloyd was a 20-year-old junior at the University of Alabama at Birmingham who hoped to attend medical school.

The three are also facing state arson charges, and state prosecutors said they would press for any state sentences to be served consecutively, rather than concurrently, with the sentences imposed on Monday.

“The local community wants them to have to step into a Bibb County courtroom,” said Michael Jackson, the district attorney for Bibb County, where the first five churches were burned. “And we don’t want them to be too comfortable. They need to serve some time in state prison.”

The Rev. Jim Parker, the pastor at Ashby Baptist Church, which was destroyed in the first night’s fires in Bibb County, was more sympathetic.

“Let’s let them do their time and then let them move on to rebuilding their lives and those of others,” Mr. Parker said.

Meanwhile, rebuilding continues at the burned churches.

Mr. Parker’s congregation has already begun site work on a 10-acre parcel donated by a local businessman. The new building may be ready by Christmas.