Authorities are investigating suspected arson after a massive fire destroyed a century-old wooden church at the heart of a small Acadian community in northern New Brunswick.

Saint-Simon Church on the Acadian Peninsula was engulfed in flames early Monday morning, destroying a landmark that had stood in the tiny fishing community for generations.

Caraquet Fire Department Chief Luc Dugas said investigators have reason to believe the fire was deliberately set.

🚨 Yet ANOTHER church on fire in Canada

Saint Simon in New Brunswick was DESTROYED this morning in a SUSPICIOUS fire pic.twitter.com/7Bt436FdIn

— Catholic Arena (@CatholicArena) August 24, 2026

“At this time, we believe someone would have set the fire,” Dugas said.

The church's motion detectors reportedly registered movement inside the building shortly before the fire alarm sounded. By the time firefighters arrived, flames had already spread through the building and eventually reached the roof.

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No injuries were reported, though nearby buildings were damaged by the intense heat.

The RCMP and New Brunswick's Office of the Fire Marshal are investigating the blaze as suspicious. No arrests have been announced.

The destruction has devastated Saint-Simon, now part of the Municipality of Caraquet, where the towering wooden church had long served as a religious and cultural centre for the predominantly Acadian community.

The suspected arson comes amid a years-long wave of fires and vandalism targeting Canadian churches following the May 2021 announcement of ground-penetrating-radar findings of "burials" of former students at the former Kamloops Indian Residential School.

Approximately 120 churches across Canada have been burned, vandalized or desecrated since May 2021, with at least 44 completely destroyed, according to a 2026 tally from The Democracy Fund. A 2025 Macdonald-Laurier Institute analysis also found arson against religious institutions increased substantially after the Kamloops announcement.

The initial Kamloops announcement was widely reported as the discovery of the “remains of 215 children.” However, the evidence came from ground-penetrating radar identifying subsurface anomalies. No human remains have been recovered or forensically identified from those 215 sites, and the existence and nature of possible burials there have not been confirmed through excavation. The investigation is ongoing.