MISCELLANEOUS FACTS. In the middle of the holiday season, the municipality of Sainte-Aurélie lost its community center. A major fire ravaged this building on December 31, it housing the municipal hall, the library and the local Canada Post office.
The Sainte-Aurélie Fire Department responded to the scene at 9:30 a.m. Supported by firefighters from Saint-Zacharie and Saint-Prosper, they fought the flames for several hours. A mechanical excavator was also on site to destroy part of the building.
“We had no chance of saving the building. Hydro-Québec cut off power during the intervention. The important thing is that there are no injuries. No one was in the center,” specifies Hugo Bélanger, head of the Sainte-Aurélie Fire Department.
Despite the heavy plume of smoke, many residents watched the firefighters’ work behind the safety tape. The cause of the fire, according to Hugo Bélanger, was linked to the explosion of an electric car charging station or the vehicle connected to it. The blaze will be investigated.
Reconstruction rapide
Present on site, Mayor René Allen confirms that the center, with municipal hall and library, will be rebuilt in the same location in the short term.
“We had already planned, in our PTI (three-year capital expenditure program), major renovations in 2026. The financial package was to be done in 2025. We are simply going to rush events,” he explains.
In order to avoid too much load on the aqueduct network, the firefighters used both the fire hydrants and the drawing of water from Lac des Abénaquis by a tanker truck. “They did an exceptional job,” says René Allen.
No municipal services will be affected by the destruction of the center. “We had already moved the city hall. It’s especially a shame for the library. The volunteers are very affected, because we had a large collection of archive photos of the village,” mentions the mayor.
As for where Canada Post services will be offered, information was not available at the time of writing.
