{"id":494859,"date":"2026-02-23T21:11:06","date_gmt":"2026-02-23T21:11:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/494859\/"},"modified":"2026-02-23T21:11:06","modified_gmt":"2026-02-23T21:11:06","slug":"historic-montreal-church-destroyed-by-fire-flames-spread-to-adjacent-retirement-home-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/494859\/","title":{"rendered":"Historic Montreal church destroyed by fire; flames spread to adjacent retirement home"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Church destroyed by fire<\/p>\n<p>The Canadian Press &#8211; Feb 23, 2026 \/ 8:50 am | Story: 600304<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" fetchpriority=\"high\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/40bd1ed4180f4ecce072c8d85a15d5f71beaefef70393c0023706140fb3fc231.jpg\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Firefighters respond to a five-alarm fire at Saint-Paul Catholic Church, a designated heritage site, in Montreal on Monday, Feb. 23, 2026. THE CANADIAN PRESS\/Christinne Muschi<\/p>\n<p>Click here to view gallery<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>A fire has destroyed a historic former church in southwestern Montreal and the flames spread to an adjacent seniors home.<\/p>\n<p>The fire broke out around 1:40 a.m. in the former Saint-Paul Church in the city&#8217;s Sud-Ouest borough.<\/p>\n<p>No one was inside the building when it caught fire but officials evacuated 148 people from the nearby area as a precaution.<\/p>\n<p>Among the evacuees were 73 people in the church&#8217;s former rectory, which had been converted into a seniors residence.<\/p>\n<p>Firefighters said the flames spread to the seniors residence after it was evacuated.<\/p>\n<p>The church was built between 1910-11 and is part of a heritage site comprised of a few buildings in the area.<\/p>\n<p>Officials are investigating the cause of the fire.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Church destroyed by fire The Canadian Press &#8211; Feb 23, 2026 \/ 8:50 am | Story: 600304 Firefighters&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":494860,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[49,48,295,66],"class_list":{"0":"post-494859","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-environment","11":"tag-science"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/494859","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=494859"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/494859\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/494860"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=494859"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=494859"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=494859"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}