‘We may have lost the building, but we have not lost the church’: Carman church destroyed by fire

A fire that a small-town church in Manitoba has been deemed suspicious by police. CTV's Michelle Gerwing reports on a community rallying together.

A congregation in southern Manitoba will need to find a new worship space after a fire ripped through their church early Thursday morning.

Grace – St. John’s Anglican Lutheran Church in Carman, Man., was ravaged by flames in an incident RCMP have since deemed suspicious.

According to a news release Friday, Pembina Valley RCMP responded to the church on 2nd Street SW around 4:15 a.m.

Officers arrived to find Carman Fire and Emergency Medical Services members already on scene.

“When we got here, there was fire coming out the front door quite heavily up to the eave in the attic there where it’s burned up,” Joey McElroy, Carman-Dufferin Fire Department’s (CDFC) deputy chief, told CTV News Friday.

McElroy said crews had to attack the fire defensively because part of the floor collapsed. He said they entered through a door to the basement to reach the sanctuary and cut a hole in the building’s back wall to access the office area.

“The inside is completely gutted,” McElroy said. “What’s remaining of the floor is severely compromised, and the basement and sanctuary were heavily damaged by fire and smoke.”

McElroy said 18 CDFC members showed up to battle the early morning blaze.

“It was a relentless attack from our members,” McElroy said. “We put in a lot of hard work to keep this thing still standing. We wanted to give them something left to be able to use for an investigation.”

Grace-St. John’s pastor, who’s served at the church for 15 years, arrived to find a myriad of emergency personnel on scene.

“It was really devastating,” Pastor Trudy Thorarinson told CTV News. “[I felt] very hopeless in the moment.”

She credits the first responders for their efforts, the community in and around Carman for their support, and the small congregation for rallying together.

“We may have lost the building, but we have not lost the church,” she said. “And we will continue to be the church, even if we don’t have the building,”

The bishop for the Manitoba and Northwestern Ontario Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada said the loss of a church in a small town can have a huge impact.

“They really are a part of the life of the community and they provide spaces for people to gather,” Bishop Jason Zinko told CTV News. “There’s all kind of connections – even if people aren’t members or even if they don’t attend any faith community at all. A loss like this is really a huge loss for the whole town.”

Pastor Thorarinson said this Sunday’s service will take place in a church turned bed-and-breakfast across the street – with an integral piece from the gutted sanctuary on display.

“One of the [firefighters] came out with the altar Bible that we have up there,” Thorarinson said. “It’s pretty charred… We can’t use it, but it was important to bring that out. It was a very important part of our church.”

Mounties said no one was found in the building and no injuries were reported.

However, investigators say the fire was suspicious in nature. Anyone with information or surveillance video from the area is asked to contact RCMP or Crime Stoppers.

- With files from CTV’s Michelle Gerwing