Fire at St. James Cathedral

I'm just hearing about it today, but apparently there was a fire last week at St. James Cathedral here in Toronto:

St. James Cathedral hit by fire

Sprinklers contain blaze at Toronto landmark
Nov 14, 2008 11:59 PM
DALE ANNE FREED
STAFF REPORTER

Church officials are praying they'll be able to open St. James Cathedral for a worship service Sunday after the Toronto landmark caught fire Friday night.

"I would anticipate so. There's just a little bit of smoke damage," said Assistant Bishop Philip Poole of the Anglican church diocese of Toronto, adding no one was injured.

The damage is estimated at $20,000.

Just half an hour before an organ recital was to begin, fire broke out in a chapel off the main entrance of the more than 200-year-old cathedral at Church and King Sts.

Assistant sexton Ross Hopkins said he saw flames licking the dark walls of the unlit and minimally furnished prayer room about 7 p.m.

Hopkins said only three people were in the cathedral at the time, himself, the organist and one seated parishioner.

"The room had been in darkness . . . I saw the flames and called 911," Hopkins told the Star. "The sprinkler system went on right away."

Ten fire trucks arrived just after 7 p.m. and 10 minutes later the fire was out, said District Toronto Fire Chief Don Beam.

"The main body of the fire was held back by the sprinkler system, said Beam, after walking through the smoke-filled cathedral to assess the damage.

"The fire is still under investigation ," he said.

Toronto Fire Capt. Mike Strapko said it's not considered a suspicious fire.

In 1849, the cathedral was destroyed by fire, according to an account of its history on its website.

A rebuilt cathedral opened in 1853. (source)

I hear that the damage was mostly limited to St. George's Chapel. Despite what this article says, the thinking right now is that this was most certainly a deliberate act of arson. Thank God it happened when people were around and able to act quickly!

It's a tough balance to provide the public free and easy access to our church buildings and yet protect the buildings from this kind of catastrophic abuse. The Cathedral seems especially vulnerable--I know of at least two other incidents where people decided to abuse the Cathedral's hospitality. In one case, some guy tried to steal the collection from a U2charist I helped organize to help in Africa. One of my clergy palls actually chased the fleeing thief down with the help of the police.

In another incident, a man sitting in the front row exposed himself to the presiding priest and had to be forcibly removed by the Sidespeople (ushers)! On the other hand, whenever I stop by the Cathedral during the day I usually find people inside praying quietly. So the balance between access and safety needs to be found.

The ideal solution is to have volunteers on hand inside the church to answer questions and keep an eye out. Less ideal, but possible, is to have video cameras out and then to have some alarms in place like museums do.

-t