Monday April 8, a passerby, seeing the flames rising above the Notre-Dame parish church, located in the middle of the town of Bringolo, raised the alarm shortly before 9:30 p.m. all night to bring the disaster under control with 47 firefighters from the emergency centers of Paimpol, Saint-Brieuc, Pommerit-le-Vicomte, Goudelin, Lanvollon, Plélo, Pordic and Bgard. But he was already too late. The damage is immense: the roof is completely destroyed, as are the stained glass windows. But the bell tower, emblem of the town, was able to be preserved.
Complex intervention in the wind
Strong gusts of wind fanned the flames and also greatly complicated the task of the firefighters, who were unable to use their reconnaissance drone. “The wind did not make the intervention easy. Clouds of carbilles were projected towards neighboring homes,” lamented, Monday evening, Captain Cédric Larribe, head of the western column.
Tuesday morning, Émeline Barrière, the chief of staff of the prefect of Côtes-d’Armor, who went to the site first thing in the morning, confirmed the complexity of the operations. “We wondered about an evacuation of the population but, ultimately, it was not necessary,” said the state representative, after a visit to see the extent of the damage. The fire, she said, caused no casualties.
Behind the tape, installed to secure the site, then replaced in the morning by construction barriers, the curious gathered from the beginning of the morning around the 16th century church, whose bell tower is listed as a Monument. historical, as well as several objects inside. Among which are two banners (one dating from the 17th century) and the altarpiece, “which we will never see again,” laments the mayor, Philippe Thomas.
The firefighters kept a watch to prevent the fire from resuming, paying particular attention to the gable walls, which were weakened.
“It’s such a desolation”
The fire aroused great emotion, well beyond the small town of 500 inhabitants. Even the Minister of Culture, Rachida Dati, who spoke on the social network X: “I express all my solidarity with the diocese, the faithful and the commune. I asked the Drac de Bretagne to give me a precise update of the situation and the damage as soon as possible.” And, on site, Tuesday morning, Mgr Denis Moutel, bishop of the diocese of Saint-Brieuc: “It is such desolation when a religious building burns. Everywhere, in our Breton villages, we are attached to our churches. Even if it is not on the same scale, we are facing the same dismay as for Notre-Dame de Paris.”
An electrical malfunction?
The damage is currently being assessed. The assessment began the day after the disaster. For their part, the gendarmes of the Châtelaudren-Plouagat brigade community, in charge of the investigation, are continuing their investigations to determine the origin of the fire. After the work of the criminal identification technicians. A disaster which, according to the mayor of Bringolo, could be of accidental origin, with a fire starting in the wooden attic due to an electrical malfunction. A hypothesis that the investigation will have to confirm.
Now is not the time to think about reconstruction, as Mgr Moutel pointed out. Even if it is in the back of the mind of the local councilor from Bringol, who already knows that it will be long and expensive, based on the recent experience of Trémel, who took five years to carry out the reconstruction work. Saturday evening masses will no longer be able to be held in Bringolo for a long time. “Baptisms and a wedding were planned, we will have to relocate them,” indicates Father Serge Kougnandé, parish priest of Châtelaudren-Plouagat.
