Fire causes $300K damage to North Battleford church rectory

A fire at a church in North Battleford has caused about $300,000 in damages and forced the church office to relocate.

The blaze started in the garage of Notre Dame de Lourdes Parish, according to the chairperson of the parish council Glen Ganterfoer.

“It basically destroyed everything that was in the garage and the garage itself will have to be demolished and reconstructed,” he said.

“It only received smoke damage, but there was a lot of smoke in that building. And the things that were burning in the garage were the plastics from a car that was burning and rubber tires. So who knows what toxins came into that residence with the smoke.”

The fire chief said the cause was electrical and not suspicious.

Ganterfoer said the damage won’t impact Christmas services.

“All it has done is forced us to relocate the parish office and temporarily provide housing for our parish priest.”

He said they could be out of the building for six months.

“We are very appreciative of the quick and efficient response because the North Battleford Fire Department had to get there as quickly,” he said. “They're saying that if they had been five minutes later we'd have lost the whole thing.”