A major fire severely damaged the Mother Church of Treze de Maio in southern Santa Catarina shortly after Mass, leaving its structure heavily affected while residents and emergency crews worked to protect religious objects and contain the flames.

The two accounts broadly agree on the central facts. Both say the church had closed after Mass when someone noticed smoke around the sacristy at about 10:22 a.m. Firefighters from several nearby municipalities responded, supported by military fire crews and water trucks, and brought the blaze under control around midday. The cause has not been confirmed and is to be examined by experts.¹

The Brazil Right account emphasizes the sequence of the emergency response and the preservation of items before the fire spread further. It reports that residents removed sacred images, pews and other objects, while crews later carried out overhaul work to extinguish remaining hot spots and secure the site. It describes the damage as significant rather than assigning a final assessment before investigators complete their work.¹

The Brazil Left account presents a starker picture of the physical destruction, saying the roof was consumed and collapsed and that the entire structure was damaged. At the same time, it underscores a shared point: despite the scale of the loss, no one was injured, and local residents preserved part of the church’s heritage by carrying items out of the building.²

In its message after the fire, the parish framed the event as a loss to a place of worship and community memory rather than only to a building. “The fire left marks on our church, but it cannot erase everything it represents for us,” it said, adding that the faith which had repeatedly gathered parishioners “continues alive in our hearts.”¹ The other account similarly quoted the parish’s insistence that “Our history remains. Our faith remains.”²

The shared reporting leaves one key question unresolved: what started the fire.