The clip shows a fire engulfing a church spire, causing it to collapse.<\/p>\n
Conservative US commentator David Harris Jr, who has\u00a0 also<\/a> shared several<\/a> false claims debunked<\/a> by AFP, amplified the claim on Facebook<\/a> and implied the fire had just taken place.<\/p>\n The video and screengrabs of it spread across\u00a0 Facebook<\/a>, X<\/a>, Instagram<\/a> and Threads<\/a>\u00a0in several languages, including French<\/a>, Spanish<\/a>, Vietnamese<\/a> and Haitian Creole<\/a>. Some posts<\/a> claimed the supposed arson was the result of “Islamization,” while others called for a stop to alleged “Christian genocide.”<\/p>\n Screenshot of an X post taken August 10, 2026<\/p>\n Screenshot of a Facebook post taken August 10, 2026<\/p>\n AFP has repeatedly fact-checked similar misinformation about “Islamists” and migrants starting church fires in the United Kingdom<\/a> and Canada<\/a>.<\/p>\n Some August 2026\u00a0 posts<\/a> pushing the claim about “Islamist immigrants” burning a church misused different footage of a 2024 incident in Quebec — an allegation that AFP previously\u00a0 debunked<\/a> after officials ruled that fire an accident.\u00a0<\/p>\n The video of the crumpling spire is similarly misrepresented.\u00a0<\/p>\n Reverse image searches<\/a> revealed that the clip<\/a> is over a year old and shows the \u00c9glise de l’Immacul\u00e9e-Conception, which\u00a0 burned down<\/a> July 17, 2025 in Saint-Ours<\/a>, Quebec, about 80 kilometers (50 miles) northeast of Montreal (archived here<\/a>).<\/p>\n The city of Saint-Ours rejected the claim that the blaze was started intentionally by a Muslim immigrant.<\/p>\n “The fire was caused by a lightning strike during the severe thunderstorms that hit the region that evening” Saint-Ours general director\u00a0 Pascale Dalcourt<\/a> told AFP in an August 10, 2026 email (archived\u00a0 here<\/a>).<\/p>\n A Saint-Ours press release<\/a> and news reports<\/a> from the time further confirm that lightning started the fire (archived here<\/a> and here<\/a>).\u00a0<\/p>\n Dalcourt also shared a screenshot of a weather map showing the observed lightning activity from July 17, 2025, with a strike blasting the church’s\u00a0 former location<\/a> at the center of town (archived here<\/a>).<\/p>\n Several Canadian churches have suffered<\/a> serious damage from\u00a0 fires<\/a> since 2021, with the most recent incident taking place in April 2026<\/a> at a deconsecrated structure in Saint-Romain, Quebec (archived here<\/a> and here<\/a>).<\/p>\n Multiple fires<\/a> were reported<\/a> following the 2021 revelation<\/a> that ground-penetrating radar detected possible human remains at the former Kamloops Residential School<\/a> in British Columbia, one of several Catholic boarding schools<\/a> set up a century ago in Canada to forcibly assimilate Indigenous children (archived\u00a0 here<\/a> and here<\/a>).<\/p>\n A CBC News\u00a0 investigation<\/a> found 33 churches had burned down between May 2021 and December 2023, with only two<\/a> ruled accidental. Fourteen of those fires took place on reserves and in First Nations.<\/p>\n Data<\/a> from Statistics Canada shows a peak of 155 police-reported hate crimes targeting Catholics in 2021, but it does not indicate that Christians have been the main target of such offenses in recent years.\u00a0<\/p>\n In 2025, the government agency reported<\/a> that about 3 percent of religiously motivated, police-reported hate crimes in Canada targeted Catholics, while 71 percent were directed at Jews and 18 percent at Muslims (archived\u00a0 here<\/a>).\u00a0<\/p>\n![\"<span>Screenshot](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/https:\/\/media.zenfs.com\/en\/afp_factcheck_us_713\/99fa553e4cce22be05e7b8771e82b2c6.jpeg\"\/)
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