‘The thing that can destroy adobe is water, not fire’
Notre Dame blaze in Paris raises concern about historic mission churches in New Mexico
Notre Dame blaze in Paris raises concern about historic mission churches in New Mexico.
The last time Pete Aguilar worked on San Miguel Chapel, helping install the rooftop bell with an electrical timer, he had a near-religious experience. “It was such an honor to say that I even touched those walls,” the 76-year-old electrician said of the downtown Santa Fe church, thought to be the oldest in the United States.
A month after a fire nearly destroyed the famed and beloved Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, caretakers of some of Northern New Mexico’s most historic churches have
become even more vigilant, in large part because their structures — hundreds of years old, many far from the nearest help — are vulnerable to the elements that can destroy a building.
In the case of Notre Dame, an electrical problem is believed to be the cause of a blaze that devastated large parts of the roof and came close to destroying the building. Though that structure is far different from New Mexico’s old churches, the April 15 fire in Paris sounded alarm bells for people half a world away.
“It’s true: Historic buildings and electricity are not a good mix,” said Jake Barrow, executive director of Cornerstones, a Santa Fe firm working to preserve historical buildings in New Mexico and across the Southwest.
But Barrow and others noted most of the old adobe mission churches, particularly in rural areas, burn candles or use wood stoves; some don’t even have electricity. The danger, they say, comes from someplace else.
“The thing that can destroy adobe is water, not fire,” said the Rev. Larry Brito of St. Anne Catholic Church in Santa Fe.
Brito chairs the Archbishop’s Commission for the Preservation of Historic New Mexican Churches, which oversees more than 500 active and inactive churches from Northern New Mexico to Socorro.
The commission spends a lot of time focused on identifying churches with adobe walls cracked or crumbled by water damage, Brito said, though church roofs and vigas contain a lot of wood. Pews, floors and altar screens are also extremely vulnerable to fire. And many churches don’t have much money
to make costly fixes, he said.
Commission secretary Bernadette Lucero added many of the churches were built in mountain areas and can be threatened by wildland fires.
Barrow’s group has been involved in helping to repair many of the old mission churches, including San Miguel Chapel in downtown Santa Fe, which dates to the early 1600s.
San Miguel also is unusual in that it is wired for electricity, and earlier this month, Barrow noticed a minor problem and asked his colleague, Aguilar, to take a look.
Aguilar, who previously worked on San Miguel as well as a handful of other churches in Santa Fe and the surrounding area over the years, was out that morning assessing an electrical meter that was coming off the outside wall at the back of the ancient edifice.
“If it’s left like that, it could deteriorate to the point where you have a failure,” Aguilar said. In addition to the church losing power, it could be a fire hazard, he added.
“Right now, it’s not unsafe,” Aguilar said.
Aguilar estimated the meter had been installed in the 1940s or 1950s. The wiring inside the church is probably just as old, he said.
“Most churches in the state are old churches,” Aguilar said. “With that comes old wiring, and we do upgrades to make sure that the churches are safe — safe for people and safe so that no fires start and destroy the churches.”
Many need to be brought up to code, he said, but you might not know that until the lights start flickering or switches and outlets stop working. At that point it could be a fire danger. And upgrades have to conform to newer commercial code standards, which can be expensive, he said.
Aguilar, who retired as principal of Santa Fe High School in 1993, said he relishes his many years of work as an electrician, and even still enjoys getting up on church roofs.
“I love it,” he said. “I’ve done it for 47 years already.”