St. Anne’s Anglican Church burns down in minutes. How does this happen?

[boobtoucher]

Think about what you said. The fire endangered a neighborhood that was evacuated.
What if it happened at night which would have delayed fire dept and everyone was asleep?
What if church was full?

Such buildings should be shut down, electricity blocked and whatever else is required to prevent fires
until historic buildings pass extreme safety codes designed specifically for such tinder box fire hazards

I refer you to post 15

I posted the link that you did in post #9, replying to you. i.e., you just posted my link back at me.

The neighbourhood may have been evauated as a precaution, but there was very threat to the neighbourhood. All of the buildings in close proximity are masonry/brick, so non-combustible cladding. They're also well far enough apart.

Google maps yourself over to 21 Atkins avenue around the corner. Old buildings, vinyl sided, 1' apart, full of people cooking, drying their hair, and lighting candles. Those duplexes are way more risky than a church building surrounded by a parking lot.

 

[SchlongConery]

I posted the link that you did in post #9, replying to you. i.e., you just posted my link back at me.

The neighbourhood may have been evauated as a precaution, but there was very threat to the neighbourhood. All of the buildings in close proximity are masonry/brick, so non-combustible cladding. They're also well far enough apart.

Google maps yourself over to 21 Atkins avenue around the corner. Old buildings, vinyl sided, 1' apart, full of people cooking, drying their hair, and lighting candles. Those duplexes are way more risky than a church building surrounded by a parking lot.

Asphalt shingles can be ignited far away from a fire when burning embers are carried up by the convection draft. Some dry pine needles etc. But yeah, the row houses are more vulnerable.

Fire is not to be taken lightly or fucked with.

I knew some guys who were burning slash and cleaning up their fishing camp. Soaked the ground well after the fire. 3 days later, a fire erupted a hundred meters uphill. Like someone started the fire there. 300 acres and $60,000 of two CL-215 water bombers later. the fire was out.

The fire had burned down into the organic peat-like forest floor and travelled along the bedrock, through roots etc and came back up days later and a hundred meters away.

They couldn't believe it. MNR proved them wrong and they had to pay for the water bombers.

They should have soaked the ground before the fire. (Bedrock/mineral soil was 2" down so that wasn't an option. I only burn slash in the bush within a fireplace of sorts I made out of old sheet barn roofing and snow fence t-posts. Including the base, and I soak the ground well before and after the fire. Still risky.

One summer I was helping out a buddy with a helicopter company who was contracted by the MNR to carry out "prescribed burns'. This is where the burn certain strips for pre-emptive fire breaks, and also will burn surface debris on the forest floor to reduce the risk offires spreading. Used a napalm kind of gelled gasoline dripping out of a tank on a sling under the choppah!

Like this but with smaller Bell Jet Ranger

 

[james t kirk]

I know this church. I have walked past it probably 100 times or more over the years . I always would stop and marvel at its architecture and its beauty and think to myself, "it's architecture seems out of place in Toronto." I would wonder if it was a middle eastern catholic denomination like Chaldean catholic or Coptic Christian. I was surprised to find out it was Anglican. And I noticed, "it has a dome!" I would always think, "I'd like to go in one of these days". But sadly I never did because my walks were always in the evening. And I'm not a member, and I always feel like I'm intruding going into a church that I don't belong to.

When they announced the fire on Sunday just past, that it was a church on Gladstone, I immediately thought, "God I hope it's not the church with the dome." I hoped it was some other church (how pathetic is that?). But it was saint Anne's. The initial information was that the fire was smoke and was under control, and I thought, "OK, that's not so bad". But I searched online and the pictures popping up showed flames tearing out of the roof and visible through the front windows. I knew it was a devastating fire.

And it was.

Through the media I learned that this church contained priceless works of art. The entire dome contained frescos painted by 3 members of the Group of Seven and 7 other artists. In addition, it contained other paintings by the Group of Seven. I had no idea until Sunday morning that that was the case. And now they, along with St. Anne's have been completely destroyed.

I weep for this. This is a tragedy in so many respects for the City of Toronto and for the nation.

 

[james t kirk]

As to the cause.

From what I have read in the media, the church was discovered to be burning sometime around 07h45 or so by passers by. At that time, there was no-one in the church. The priest (Beyers) has stated that he is always there before anyone else and as per usual, that would have been sometime around 08h00. He actually received a phone call that the church was on fire. And he rushed to the scene.

Beyers has stated that the church was empty at the time, and it had been closed and locked the night before.

Now I have no personal insight into the construction details of the church, only what I read in the media and the media is notorious for not knowing or caring about accuracy. But from what I read and can see, the church was constructed of brick and concrete with the exception of the roof, which was wood trusses with plaster suspended from the trusses and Indeed I can see what looks to be wood trusses still in place that would have supported the dome, but they are blackened and almost certainly destroyed.

The exterior walls are indeed brick and are still standing. Bricks of that era (1908) are most likely pressed brick and were probably made in Toronto and were mortared together with a lime based mortar. Bricks will usually survive a fire, though if the fire gets too hot, they will crack. But lime mortar, which is softer than modern cement mortars, will actually do much better in a fire than cement (portland) mortars.

I cannot tell from the photos if the floors are still intact or not. (And if indeed they are concrete.) If the fire originated in the basement, the floor would be damaged beyond repair, and would have burnt to ashes if it was wood.

I don't know, but I have the feeling the fire originated in the roof, perhaps the nave. But if the floor of the nave was indeed concrete and I can see the walls were all brick, the only thing that could burn is the roof. The contents would have been wood, but that's not enough to start a fire of this magnitude. A wooden pew going up in flames isn't going to ignite the ceiling because the dome was some 70 feet high, and the floor if concrete and tile or terrazzo isn't going to ignite.

So I'm still back to the wood roof.

Electrical of that vintage would definitely be knob and tube. And I've seen over the years lots of knob and tube wiring and I hate it. I call it "barbecue starter wiring". There are several "generations" of knob and tube that have noticeable differences. I'm familiar with 1920s KT and 1910 KT and In a nutshell, the older it is, the more dangerous it is and none of it, repeat none of it is to be trusted.

1. The wiring insulation is hugely inferior and cannot resist heat. It should never ever be buried in insulation (as in attic insulation or wall insulation). Over time, (even if not buried in attic or wall insulation) the wiring insulation becomes brittle and will, depending on "vintage" actually crumble and fall away leaving only the bare copper conductor. Especially where contained in light fixtures
canopies above ceiling mount light fixtures where the heat from the light fixture will bake the wiring insulation and turn it into carbon.

2. It has no ground wiring. A huge safety drawback.

3. It's been fucked with over the years by various incompetents.

4. As a result of 3 above, now it's overloaded.

5. It will have soldered joints or connections that are hidden in walls and ceilings and just taped up with cloth tape that reminds me of hockey tape. The tape is known to dry up and fall away.

6.. Depending on vintage, it may or may not have small shallow octagonal boxes to aid wiring and supporting of light fixtures. Or you'll find the conductors just sticking out through the plaster. 1907 residential would feature wires just sticking out through the plaster. I dunno about institutional wiring of that era to be honest.

7. The original push button switches will be brutal. I've seen them with exposed switch gear that whirl around and you can actually see the sparks when you push the button. (That said, they do make modern UL approved push button switches that are wonderful. But I really doubt the modern ones would have been in use in the church.)

But the knobs and tubes themselves are actually great ideas.

As to sprinklers, I really doubt that Saint Anne's had any fire suppression system whatsoever. I could be wrong. I just doubt the building would have been retrofitted.

Anyway, I'm thinking this fire comes down to an electrical fire or arson. Given the damage I see, any investigation isn't going to be easy. I have read in the media that the investigators have all been pulled out of the building until such time as it's been made safe by shoring it up and that will take months.

We may well never know.

 

[james t kirk]

A gofundme page has been established.

Even 20 bucks would help

Donate to Rebuild St Anne's Church - CHARITABLE FUNDRAISER, organized by Isabella C. Favaro

Rebuild St. Anne’s Anglican Church A beloved Toronto landmark, … Isabella C. Favaro needs your support for Rebuild St Anne's Church - CHARITABLE FUNDRAISER

www.gofundme.com

A grand would be even better!

 

[261252]

A gofundme page has been established.

Even 20 bucks would help

Donate to Rebuild St Anne's Church - CHARITABLE FUNDRAISER, organized by Isabella C. Favaro

Rebuild St. Anne’s Anglican Church A beloved Toronto landmark, … Isabella C. Favaro needs your support for Rebuild St Anne's Church - CHARITABLE FUNDRAISER

www.gofundme.com

A grand would be even better!

Too late. They should of done that to put in fire supression system

 

[Zoot Allures]

A gofundme page has been established.

Even 20 bucks would help

Donate to Rebuild St Anne's Church - CHARITABLE FUNDRAISER, organized by Isabella C. Favaro

Rebuild St. Anne’s Anglican Church A beloved Toronto landmark, … Isabella C. Favaro needs your support for Rebuild St Anne's Church - CHARITABLE FUNDRAISER

www.gofundme.com

A grand would be even better!

Foolish idea IMHO

I have often walked into beautiful churches on a Sunday service just to see the insides
and there will be a handful of parishoners

Atheism is the fastest growing religion

Churches pews are empty so they want to rebuild one?

 

[james t kirk]

Bit of an update,

I took a look on the church's website and found that it specifically says that the church was made of Brick and Concrete.

St. Anne's is constructed of concrete and brick and is based on a cruciform plan with a distinctive central dome, 21 meters in height (compared to the 55.6 metres of Hagia Sofia). The supporting pendentives (triangular, spherical corner supports for the dome) spring from four columns of Caen stone.

I can see the old exterior brick walls still standing. Based on the description of the construction of the church, the floor would have been poured concrete (which is in keeping with other churches constructed in the same time period).

That means that only the roof was made of wood. Which would make sense because wood is light and could be used to form trusses and span the nave.

Some photos of the interior from the church's website can be seen here.

And more about the history of the building here.

You can see in the above photo the use of spot lighting to illuminate the dome. You've got up lighting, down lighting and at different levels.

Now those lights on the left and right look like old school incandescent spot lights which would draw a fair bit of electricity and would generate heat. But the thing was, I doubt those lights would have been left on in the night. Any of them. That means no electrical current in the wires feeding the lights and no heat from the bulbs. It is possible that there was some sort of smoldering fire that occurred friday evening and took time to spread, but I have my doubts.

You can see from this photo and the photos below that plaster was applied directly to the brick walls. And it's still intact. Those brick walls are most likely able to be saved. That fire went straight up.

You can also see what appears to be wooden trusses with timber top chords and bottom chords and timber diagonal compression members. You can also see vertical steel tension rods (with a nut on the top of the top chord) running vertically down through the top chord and down and right trough the bottom chord to suspend the ceiling structure which may be concrete. (All of this is real hard to discern from these photos, but I don't see any rivets and there are lots of timbers laying on the floor.)

So this place had a suspended concrete ceiling, maybe ???

So how the fuck did it catch on fire?

Concrete floors, brick walls with plaster. And what appears to be a concrete ceiling. None of those elements burn.

If I'm correct, that means that the fire could only have started in the roof structure, above the concrete ceiling. And looking at the above photo, the truss in the foreground is far blacker than the truss in the background. and everything is destroyed in area which would have been above the alter.

Begs the question how.

 

[Robert Mugabe]

Bit of an update,

I took a look on the church's website and found that it specifically says that the church was made of Brick and Concrete.



I can see the old exterior brick walls still standing. Based on the description of the construction of the church, the floor would have been poured concrete (which is in keeping with other churches constructed in the same time period).

That means that only the roof was made of wood. Which would make sense because wood is light and could be used to form trusses and span the nave.

Some photos of the interior from the church's website can be seen here.

And more about the history of the building here.

You can see in the above photo the use of spot lighting to illuminate the dome. You've got up lighting, down lighting and at different levels.

Now those lights on the left and right look like old school incandescent spot lights which would draw a fair bit of electricity and would generate heat. But the thing was, I doubt those lights would have been left on in the night. Any of them. That means no electrical current in the wires feeding the lights and no heat from the bulbs. It is possible that there was some sort of smoldering fire that occurred friday evening and took time to spread, but I have my doubts.

You can see from this photo and the photos below that plaster was applied directly to the brick walls. And it's still intact. Those brick walls are most likely able to be saved. That fire went straight up.

You can also see what appears to be wooden trusses with timber top chords and bottom chords and timber diagonal compression members. You can also see vertical steel tension rods (with a nut on the top of the top chord) running vertically down through the top chord and down and right trough the bottom chord to suspend the ceiling structure which may be concrete. (All of this is real hard to discern from these photos, but I don't see any rivets and there are lots of timbers laying on the floor.)

So this place had a suspended concrete ceiling, maybe ???

So how the fuck did it catch on fire?

Concrete floors, brick walls with plaster. And what appears to be a concrete ceiling. None of those elements burn.

If I'm correct, that means that the fire could only have started in the roof structure, above the concrete ceiling. And looking at the above photo, the truss in the foreground is far blacker than the truss in the background. and everything is destroyed in area which would have been above the alter.

Begs the question how.

Begs the question how.

You seem to be ignoring the obvious.
God.

 

[Robert Mugabe]

Foolish idea IMHO

I have often walked into beautiful churches on a Sunday service just to see the insides
and there will be a handful of parishoners

Atheism is the fastest growing religion

Churches pews are empty so they want to rebuild one?

True. I was on a trip to Quebec and went on a bus tour to Montmorency Falls and other places. We stopped at Saint Anne De Beaupre Basilica and the bus driver said we could go in and take a look. I wasn't the least bit interested in looking at a church, but decided to kill the time. Glad I did.
Stunning achievement of beauty.

 

[DesRicardo]

Bit of an update,

I took a look on the church's website and found that it specifically says that the church was made of Brick and Concrete.



I can see the old exterior brick walls still standing. Based on the description of the construction of the church, the floor would have been poured concrete (which is in keeping with other churches constructed in the same time period).

That means that only the roof was made of wood. Which would make sense because wood is light and could be used to form trusses and span the nave.

Some photos of the interior from the church's website can be seen here.

And more about the history of the building here.

You can see in the above photo the use of spot lighting to illuminate the dome. You've got up lighting, down lighting and at different levels.

Now those lights on the left and right look like old school incandescent spot lights which would draw a fair bit of electricity and would generate heat. But the thing was, I doubt those lights would have been left on in the night. Any of them. That means no electrical current in the wires feeding the lights and no heat from the bulbs. It is possible that there was some sort of smoldering fire that occurred friday evening and took time to spread, but I have my doubts.

You can see from this photo and the photos below that plaster was applied directly to the brick walls. And it's still intact. Those brick walls are most likely able to be saved. That fire went straight up.

You can also see what appears to be wooden trusses with timber top chords and bottom chords and timber diagonal compression members. You can also see vertical steel tension rods (with a nut on the top of the top chord) running vertically down through the top chord and down and right trough the bottom chord to suspend the ceiling structure which may be concrete. (All of this is real hard to discern from these photos, but I don't see any rivets and there are lots of timbers laying on the floor.)

So this place had a suspended concrete ceiling, maybe ???

So how the fuck did it catch on fire?

Concrete floors, brick walls with plaster. And what appears to be a concrete ceiling. None of those elements burn.

If I'm correct, that means that the fire could only have started in the roof structure, above the concrete ceiling. And looking at the above photo, the truss in the foreground is far blacker than the truss in the background. and everything is destroyed in area which would have been above the alter.

Begs the question how.

In true Torontonian fashion, they should knock it all down and put up a condo.

 

[DesRicardo]

A gofundme page has been established.

Even 20 bucks would help

Donate to Rebuild St Anne's Church - CHARITABLE FUNDRAISER, organized by Isabella C. Favaro

Rebuild St. Anne’s Anglican Church A beloved Toronto landmark, … Isabella C. Favaro needs your support for Rebuild St Anne's Church - CHARITABLE FUNDRAISER

www.gofundme.com

A grand would be even better!

This makes me a bit sad. Looks like they won't even hit a tenth of the goal.

 

[SchlongConery]

In true Torontonian fashion, they should knock it all down and put up a condo.

Actually, I have to partially retract some parts of my previos posts.

Seems the church was trying to sever off part of their property so that they could sell some off to help finance neglected and deferred maintenance and restoration.

 

[Big Rig]

This makes me a bit sad. Looks like they won't even hit a tenth of the goal.

I think donation is to renovate the parish hall for services not the church.

Until then services are outside

GoFundMe is for a million which will not rebuild some homes

I wonder about insurance ? They never had fire insurance ?

My thoughts are to take the insurance money and sell everything else and build a condo
as we have too many churches with empty pews and not enough homes so use this disaster to
help solve those two problems not build another empty church

 

[Robert Mugabe]

This makes me a bit sad. Looks like they won't even hit a tenth of the goal.

Roman Catholic Church
We are a Roman Catholic Church located in Toronto.
St. Ann's Parish, Toronto - St. Ann's Parish, Toronto
stannsto.archtoronto.org/
If this is the St. Ann's Church we are talking about, too bad the Catholic Church doesn't have any money.

 

[SchlongConery]

@james t kirk

How many times have you seen this and wish yyou thought of this reply?

Thomas at it again #sparkylife#electrical#electricistas#kingoftrades

youtube.com

 

[Zoot Allures]

This was a different look from the group of seven .

Great canadian art was lost .

Those paintings were unique and beautiful