Another Morinville church destroyed
Three houses of worship left in town after Sunday blaze
A fire destroyed St. Andrew’s Anglican Church in Morinville early Sunday, the second church fire in the town in nine months.
Morinville RCMP officers and about 20 volunteer fire fighters from Morinville and Legal responded to the blaze at 107th Street and 100th Avenue at 2:30 a.m. No one was injured. The cause is under investigation.
When Tracy Roulston, chief of the Legal fire department, and his five member crew arrived, he said the fire was “as big as they get.
“It was a good working fire when we arrived. We had no problems finding it. It was a good ball of flames.”
His crew battled the blaze for three hours, helping contain it so it would not spread to nearby apartment complexes.
St. Andrew’s Rev. Ron Horst got a sign Sunday morning that something was amiss.
“The Lord woke me up at six in the morning and said don’t be afraid, I’m always with you,” he said. “At 6:30 I got the call that the church was on fire.”
When he arrived at the church, the back wall had collapsed and the roof had caved in. He said there was nothing salvageable
Horst’s Sunday sermon was going to be about thankfulness and forgiveness, a message he said was appropriate “because we are thankful for His mercy.”
He phoned his small congregation of 20 or so to warn them their church had burned. They will now worship at Emmanuel Anglican Church in Gibbons where he is also the minister.
“Our people have hung together, our people are good people, in that sense I feel really encouraged,” Horst said. “We’re not happy, we’re not pleased. Some of those people had their children baptized in the building, people married in that building. We have a lot of heartfelt memories in the building, but we know there’s more to it than the memories.”
The mayor of Morinville, Paul Krauskopf, found out about the fire when he went to his church, St. Jean Baptiste Parish, at 9 a.m. Sunday.
“It’s devastating for the Christian community because those are places of gathering,” he said.
St. Andrew’s rented out space to Father’s House Christian Fellowship. That congregation’s youth group frequently used the facility. About 50 to 100 youths would meet there on Fridays.
Last September, the town’s Baptist church was destroyed by an electrical fire that started in the kitchen. It has yet to be rebuilt.
“We have a lot of heartfelt memories ...” REV. RON HORST
There are now three churches remaining in town, Krauskopf said.
“It certainly makes you wonder what’s going on in Morinville,” said Charles Brailey, a parishioner at the Morinville United Church. “There used to be so many churches in town, it’s kind of shocking actually.”
The two church fires concern Brailey. “You have to give it some thought,” he said. “If it’s found out that it’s something suspicious, that would get your guard up to keep a closer eye on what’s going on in your own church because you could be next, you never know.”
Before the building became a church it was a restaurant. It was purchased by the Anglican Church more than 20 years ago.