Overheating caused by concert spotlights appears to have been the cause of the fire, which broke out in two places at around 6.45 on Sunday morning. The fire service was immediately alerted, and the fire was under control by 8.30. For a brief period, damage to roof beams in one gallery led to fears of a collapse, and the evacuation of artwork was stopped.

The disaster plan was drawn up in 2005 for the protection of five major churches in Antwerp: St- Paulus, Sint-Jacob, Sint-Andries, Carolus Borromeus and the Cathedral. The plan lays out the most important aspects of the five churches regarding safety and the protection of important heritage artefacts. The head of collections for the museums of Antwerp set up a crisis centre in the sacristy to establish priorities for the rescue of artworks, if required.

In the end, that was not required, as the fire service, whose station is barely 100 metres from the church, had the fire rapidly under control. A series of drawings made by Jan Pieter Baurscheit in the 1720s for a possible restoration of the church, which are listed among the city’s art treasures, was removed from the church and taken to the city archive.

“The climatic circumstances after the fire were far from ideal,” said Antwerp mayor Patrick Janssens. “The relatively high humidity is damaging to paper artefacts.” One painting of the Madonna suffered slight damage, and a wooden pulpit was drenched by hoses.

Even after the fire was extinguished, there remained the danger of damage from soot, water or smoke in the air. According to standard procedure, air purifiers should be brought in, but the church is too large. “The summer climate and the circulation of air through the open doors will have to do the job of keeping mould from developing,” Janssens said. “Antwerp has escaped a major disaster.”

The church on Hendrik Concienceplein was built in the Baroque style between 1615 and 1621 by the Jesuit order, based on the façade of the Gesú church in Rome, the headquarters of the order. It was originally dedicated to St Ignatius Loyola, the order’s founder. When the Jesuits were suppressed by a papal bull of Pope Clement XIV in 1773, the church was rededicated to Carlo Borromeo, an archbishop of Milan and major church reformer.

For a time it was a veritable treasure-house of the work of Rubens, who provided 39 ceiling paintings for the decoration of the church. These were destroyed, however, in a fire in 1718.