{"id":495089,"date":"2026-02-23T23:44:13","date_gmt":"2026-02-23T23:44:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/495089\/"},"modified":"2026-02-23T23:44:13","modified_gmt":"2026-02-23T23:44:13","slug":"historic-montreal-church-destroyed-by-fire-flames-spread-to-adjacent-retirement-home-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/495089\/","title":{"rendered":"Historic Montreal church destroyed by fire; flames spread to adjacent retirement home"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"800\" height=\"534\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/CP175864701.jpg\" class=\"attachment-post-thumbnail size-post-thumbnail wp-post-image\" alt=\"A five-alarm fire at Saint-Paul Catholic Church in Montreal\" style=\"object-fit:cover;\"  \/>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>MONTREAL \u2013 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\u2019s 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\u2019s 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>\n            Subscribe to our newsletters\n         <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Firefighters respond to a five-alarm fire at Saint-Paul Catholic Church, a designated heritage site, in Montreal on Monday,&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":495090,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194292],"tags":[49,48,2338],"class_list":["post-495089","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-montreal","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-montreal"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/495089","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=495089"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/495089\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/495090"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=495089"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=495089"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=495089"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}