Fire at St. Patrick church doused

Arson investigators were called as a precautionary measure to the scene of a small electrical fire at a more than 100-year-old church in San Francisco’s Financial District Sunday evening, a fire dispatcher said.

Firefighters responded at 7:05 p.m. to a report of smoke in St. Patrick Church, located at 756 Mission St., the dispatcher said. Fire crews found smoke coming from the bathroom and found a small fire in the rectory, according to the dispatcher.

The small blaze was never classified as a working fire, he said. Firefighters quickly extinguished the fire but called in an arson team as a precaution. The dispatcher said that’s a standard practice for “any fire that’s located in a place that it’s not normally.” Fire crews cleared the scene at 9:21 p.m., the dispatcher said. There were no injuries reported.

The dispatcher said he did not know if the church was damaged by the small blaze. The Catholic church was built in 1900, according to the San Francisco assessor’s database, and was partially rebuilt after the 1906 earthquake, according to the church’s website.