The Superdome, home of the New Orleans Saints, catches fire

On3 imageby:Jonathan Wagner09/21/21

Jonathan Wagner

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Chris Graythen via Getty Images.

The Superdome in New Orleans has caught fire. The fire ignited in the roof of the stadium, per FOX 8 New Orleans. There is not yet word on what caused the fire or the severity of damages.

As of 2:20 p.m. ET, the fire was under control, per the city of New Orleans’ emergency preparedness campaign on Twitter.

The Saints were not able to play inside the Superdome during Week 1

The New Orleans Saints were scheduled to begin their season inside the Superdome during week one, but Hurricane Ida forced the game to be moved to Jacksonville. While the Saints obviously would have preferred to have been in front of their home crowd, they still came out and dominated with a 38-3 victory over the Green Bay Packers in Jacksonville.

New Orleans was unable to use team facilities due to the storm, and eventually evacuated and used the facilities at TCU.

The Saints will be hitting the road on Sunday with a trip to New England to take on the Patriots. New Orleans’ next home game is scheduled to take place on Sunday, October 3 against the New York Giants at 1 p.m. ET.

This news of the fire at the Superdome is a continuation of a recent string of bad news for the Saints. Along with Hurricane Ida and now the Superdome fire, the Saints’ coaching staff has been dealing with COVID-19 protocols. In the Saints’ Week 2 game against the Carolina Panthers, seven assistant coaches were away from the team due to protocols.

Not having so many coaches around might have impacted the Saints’ performance on Sunday. The team did not look remotely the same to how it did in week one against the Packers. Carolina came out strong and dominated the Saints throughout the game, handing New Orleans a 26-7 loss.