Major fire destroys historical church site, forces evacuation of seniors’ residence in Montreal

Saint-Paul Church, a designated heritage site in Montreal’s Sud-Ouest borough, was destroyed by fire on Sunday night. A large number of firefighters were still on the scene on Monday morning.

According the Montreal Fire Department (SIM), a 911 call was made close to 2 a.m. about the five-alarm fire in the vacant building located on De l’Eglise Avenue and Laurendeau Street.

No one was in the building when the fire broke out. As a precautionary measure, 148 people were evacuated from the area, including 73 who were in the former rectory adjacent to the church, which had been converted into an intermediate residence for seniors.

The Montreal Fire Department (SIM), which issued a fifth alarm, reported no injuries related to the fire on Monday morning. The Red Cross was called in to assist those who had to evacuate in the middle of the night.

Francis Fleury, section chief of SIM, said, “About 150 firefighters were needed to fight the large-scale fire,” adding that the weather conditions posed a challenge for the firefighters.

“There’s the temperature, so the snow, the ice, the cold,” Fleury said.

‘A terrible loss’

The historical building suffered extensive damages.

“It’s going to be impossible to restore,” Fleury said. “For the moment, as you can see from the images, the fire has really badly affected the church itself.”

Rebuilt twice, the current Saint-Paul Church was erected in 1910 and 1911 according to plans by Montreal architect Joseph-Arthur Godin.

Stefano Marrone, head of real estate for the Archdiocese of Montreal, which owns the building said it was used by an Orthodox Romanian group for mass services and that there was also a food bank that operated out of the building.

“It’s a terrible loss,” Marrone said. “We’re hoping to avoid these kind of situations in the future, but, it’s a loss for the community and those that have lived around it for all these years.”

Marrone added that the church will assess in the coming weeks on whether to demolish or restore the building after the authorities complete their work.

“I think that these properties have to give back to their community somehow. We’re going to be working on a way to ensure that it does in the future with some sort of replacement project that we’ll definitely have to work on,” said Marrone.

Roger Mpemudjir Kilanga, head of La main qui partage, the volunteer-run food bank that operated from the building since 2013, said, the loss of the building would be felt by the more than 150 families to whom they distributed food baskets each week.

“What just happened is very, very difficult for us. Because there are people who are truly in need. There are elderly people, there are retirees, there are people on welfare. They come here every Friday to get food,” Kilanga said, who is also a pastor in the community.

“I don’t know where to start, I don’t know what to do. We’re not in a community that can afford to lose such an important service. Poverty is still present (…) especially at times like these, when everything is expensive, it’s really too difficult for the community.”

Residents evacuated

Nearly 150 residents — including 73 seniors at an intermediate residence — were evacuated as a precaution.

Govinda Mohini, one of the residents, said, she saw the flames first and woke her roommate up before they had to be evacuated by the police.

“There was no light so it was hard to leave the apartment,” Mohini said. “It was going downstairs with no lights at all so it was very, very scary.”

Adding, “The bad thing is we got cut the no electricity, so hopefully we can get some help, maybe from the Red Cross.”

Ricardo Brunet, who lives nearby, said, he saw firefighters on ladder shooting water to put off the big blaze.

“Oh, crazy. I’ll never probably see that in my lifetime again in Ville Émard,” Brunet said. “It was a huge fire there.”

Adding, “I came outside my house and there was firefighters on the ladder. They had drones. They were shooting water into the window up there, the hole.”

Another resident David Bell said he was woken up by the fire trucks at 3 a.m.

“I saw the big cloud and I saw the embers flying out of the said cloud and flames and I knew it was an old building based on that,” Bell said.

Bell said the building had been in a state of disrepair even though some people had been using it.

“The stairs in front were all demolished and whatnot,” Bell added. “It was almost dangerous.”

Operation continues

SIM’s section chief Fleury said that it was too early to say what caused the fire.

“Firefighters are still extinguishing the fire,” Fleury said. “So as for the investigation and cause of the fire, I still don’t have any details at this time.”

Hydro-Québec website also showed a power outage in the area closer to 7:30 a.m.

A spokesperson for Hydro-Québec said the utility company turned off the power at the request of the fire department for safety reasons during their operation.

— With files from La Presse Canadienne