San Francisco Church ( es, link=no, Iglesia de San Francisco) is a Catholic church located in

Barón Hill The Baron Hill ( Spanish: ''Cerro Barón'') is one of the 42 hills of the city of Valparaiso, Chile. It is located on the east end of the plan of the city, next to the Dairy Hill, and is a purely residential area. His name is that in 1795 the p ...

, Valparaíso, Chile. The church served as

lighthouse A lighthouse is a tower, building, or other type of physical structure designed to emit light from a system of lamps and lenses and to serve as a beacon for navigational aid, for maritime pilots at sea or on inland waterways. Lighthouses mar ...

to the navigants who were arriving Valparaíso until the early 20th century, being the first recognizable point of the city. Valparaíso is often nicknamed with the diminutive form of Francisco: ''Pancho''. The church was constructed by the Franciscan community. The construction works ended in 1846. The building was remodeled in 1890 by architect Eduardo Provasoli. The church was named National Monument of Chile on 19 July 1983. In the middle of a reconstruction process after the

2010 Chile earthquake The 2010 Chile earthquake and tsunami ( es, Terremoto del 27F) occurred off the coast of central Chile on Saturday, 27 February at 03:34 local time (06:34 UTC), having a magnitude of 8.8 on the moment magnitude scale, with intense shaking la ...

, the church was severely damaged by a fire in September 2010. It was once again affected by a fire in August 2013 close to its re-inauguration by President Sebastián Piñera.

Fires

1983

Iglesia de San Francisco de Valparaiso en 1864

San Francisco Church suffered a fire on 4 February 1983. It was reconstructed in the following years.

2010

San Francisco Church suffered a great fire on 2 September 2010, in the middle of a reconstruction process which had started in June 2010. The fire was started in the attic of the church, and damaged most of the roofing of the church. It also damaged

Luis Beltrán School Luis is a given name. It is the Spanish form of the originally Germanic name or . Other Iberian Romance languages have comparable forms: (with an accent mark on the i) in Portuguese and Galician, in Aragonese and Catalan, while is archai ...

. The church had been already severely damaged by 27 February 2010 Chile earthquake. The fire started around 12:00 local time (16:00 UTC), while a priest was performing a mass for around 60 people. The church was immediately evacuated. Around 600 students from the nearby

were also evacuated. The church was scheduled to be re-inaugurated on 15 September, according to priest

Javier McMahon Javier may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media * Javier, in video game '' Advance Wars: Dual Strike'' * Javier Rios, a character in the Monsters, Inc. franchise. * ''Javier'' (album), a 2003 album by the American singer Javier Colon, known a ...

. It is believed that the cause of the fire were some welding sparks. The

Ministry of Public Works of Chile The Ministry of Public Works ( es, Ministerio de Obras Públicas, links=no) is the cabinet-level administrative office in charge of "planning, directing, controlling and building the public infrastructure, as well as the conservation and manageme ...

estimated the damage at around 2.500.000.000 Chilean pesos (5 million US dollars).

2013

The church was, once again, affected by a fire on 2 August 2013. The fire started at 04:30 local time (08:30 UTC) for reasons under investigation, in the Faculty of Mathematics of the Pontifical Catholic University of Valparaíso. Firefighters told ''

La Tercera ''La Tercera'' ( es, The Third One), formerly known as ''La Tercera de la Hora'' ('the third of the hour'), is a daily newspaper published in Santiago, Chile and owned by Copesa. It is ''El Mercurio''s closest competitor. ''La Tercera'' is part o ...

'' the building had no risk of collapsing. The church was being repaired at the time, and was close to being inaugurated by President Piñera.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:San Francisco Church (Valparaiso) National Monuments of Chile Buildings and structures in Valparaíso Region Buildings and structures in Valparaíso Churches completed in 1846 19th-century Roman Catholic church buildings in Chile Tourist attractions in Valparaíso Region