INNISFAIL - A fire at Our Lady of Peace Catholic Church could not spoil Christmas for Innisfail’s Catholic community.
A fire broke out at the church sometime after 9:00 a.m. on the morning of Saturday, Dec. 22.
“It was Saturday morning. I was notified at 10 o’clock and attended. The fire department was still on scene and there was still a bit of smoke coming out of the church,” said Patrick Doll, one of two maintenance personnel with the church.
He noted the fire was contained to the southeast beam on the south side of the building.
Father Liju Jose said despite the situation, parishioners were still able to celebrate mass on Christmas Day.
“We had mass at St. Marguerite Bourgeoys Catholic School on December 23 and on Christmas Day,” said Liju. “It was unfortunate. Things happen and parishioners understand the situation.”
Doll said the church began looking at replacing the roof earlier this year and in the process of inspecting the roof found rot in one of the beams. They had to improve the structural integrity of the system for the short term, noted Doll, and did that by installing metal plates, welding them to the original support brackets and bolting them through the beams.
They discovered the rot was so significant they had to increase the length and thickness of the plates.
The work on the roof was completed just days before Christmas.
“We had a welding company attend (on Friday). They did their due diligence in ensuring there was no fire or that they didn’t cause a fire,” said Doll. “Obviously something went awry, but they did their due diligence by using water and coming back six or seven hours after they finished welding to check for any smouldering.
“That was Friday evening. They couldn’t detect anything and felt everything was secure and fine.”
Church maintenance also checked on things after the welding company did, at the end of the day and did not detect any smoke or fire, noted Doll.
“The next morning (Dec. 22) a citizen drove by and saw smoke coming from the south side of the church and notified the Innisfail fire department,” said Doll.
Gary Leith, chief of the Innisfail Fire Department, said his station received the first call on the church fire at 9:30 a.m. He said three fire department units and 12 firefighters, including himself, responded.
"On arrival there was smoke issuing from the roof itself. They extinguished it using hand lines and we were able to extinguish it from the exterior. They (firefighters) had to cut away a large (three-metre) section of the roof to make sure the fire was fully extinguished."
He said the church was unoccupied at the time of the fire. He said the insurance company is now dealing with the damage. Leith said it was "difficult" to get an estimated value as there was "significant" damage. However, he did add it's probably at least $10,000.
"It (fire) was really unfortunate but it was well caught and obviously we were able to extinguish it in a relatively early stage of the fire," said Leith.
On Dec. 27, Doll and the welding company were back at the church to temporarily fix the beam so Our Lady of Peace Catholic Church could continue holding mass beginning Dec. 30.
“What we’ve done now by adding this extra plate, is made it structurally safe for us to reoccupy this building for church services,” said Doll. “Now the supporting plates have added integrity to those beams to make this a safe facility to use again.”
With files from Johnnie Bachusky
