Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris on fire.

[detrius]

Edifice Complex - Futility Closet

On visiting the Gold Pavilion Temple in Kyoto, Douglas Adams was impressed at how well the 14th-century structure had weathered the passage of time. His Japanese guide told him that it hadn’t weathered well at all; in fact it had burned to the ground twice in the 20th century. “So this isn’t the...

www.futilitycloset.com

Ship of Theseus - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

 

[Sid]

That's just on-sight though. The building will have to be assessed by engineers before we learn the real scope of the damage.

That seems to me as a picture from before the fire.
All the walls are in original colors and the roof is on top.

 

[Myficals]

That seems to me as a picture from before the fire.
All the walls are in original colors and the roof is on top.

The billows of smoke from the remaining spot fires make it pretty clear it's a post blaze photo. If you open the thread there are a few more shots of the damage. The roof appearing to still be there in that shot is probably a trick of the lighting. One of the other photos in the thread makes it clear that it's gone.

 

[RealVioletWitch]

There's glowing embers falling from the roof in that pic, and smoking rubble on the floor in the background. Or that's how it looks to us?

 

[Sid]

Look how it looked from above last night:

This photo doesn't really match with what I see on the other picture.

According to the bishop of the Notre Dame, everything inside is black, burned or covered in soot. A lot of altar paintings damaged.
Specialized firefighters have managed to get a part of the most important art works out of the burning church last night.
The organ has a lot of damage, but is not totally lost as it seems right now and the structure of the church seems stable.
Of course a lot needs to be checked during the following days,weeks, months.

 

[Myficals]

This photo doesn't really match with what I see on the other picture.

Look at the other photos in the Twitter thread, Sid.

 

[Bartholomew Gallacher]

The fire fighters were following a protocol, which is ready since centuries in case of a new revolution would destroy Notre Dame again; there are also replacement oaks ready to build a new roof structure - if they do want to build it using wood again, that is. Many neo-gothic churches of the 19th century used iron instead of wood, which is also the case for Cologne Cathedral as well. Iron has over wood the big advantage that it's quite fire safe, but has its own disadvantages in case of fire.


Most of the interior was made in the 19th century anyway; and most windows where white to get more light in it.

 

[Sid]

It seems the ceiling on the vaults has kept a lot of the fire away from the inside of the curch.
That's probably the reason the church is relatively undamaged for such a huge fire.

 

[Bartholomew Gallacher]

The reason why the church is still quite undamaged is that

a) the fire fighters did a great job
b) the fire started the the roof.

It's hard in such a church for the fire to spread top down; bottom up would be another story, due to building working like a big chimney.

 

[Zaida Gearbox]

It looks like they were able to save the crown of thorns and other relics.

Priest helped rescue treasures from burning Notre Dame

Paris fire brigade chaplain Jean-Marc Fournier joined human chain to save relics

www.theguardian.com

 

[Soen Eber]

I'm going to be an idiot and call it right here: a welding or cutting torch. Why is it always some unlucky fool with a sparky-sparky machine? Yeah, I know, sparks and all that, but it and the fire triangle are not exactly new technologies and we know how to handle everything but a flaming comet or a fire tornado, especially for a treasured national monument. Automated thermal imaging and sensor systems with multiple backups, on-site water pumps with misters and fire training, fire extinguishers, site preparation, spotters, no work on windy days and all that...*sigh*

But they probably already had all that and someone was just careless or unlucky or "we never thought this could happen" happened or "someone used A instead of B".

Damn.

 

[Bartholomew Gallacher]

In 2007 there was a fire in the neogothic church of St. Peter in Düsseldorf. During renovations at the roof a gas blower exploded which triggered a dust explosion, and seconds later the whole roof was on fire. The result was quite the same like yesterday in Paris.

So the possible how is quite easily understood.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

Thread

 

[Soen Eber]

I'm going to be "that idiot" again, having watched too many safety videos for entertainment on You Tube (yeah, that really makes me an expert, doesn't it?.).. If they were working on the steeple and it had a lot of lead cladding around it like I've heard, you think it might be possible it built up too much of a thermal mass over the day and that giant heat sink found some dry, rotten wood deep under from it's earlier restoration? People aren't used to working with lead (I worked litigation support for a major lawsuit tied to lead) , just thin stuff which dissipates heat easily. The normal precautions would have been more health than safety related, and maybe it was a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation because you got all that flammable plastic and protective clothing and masks and encapsulation material and you sure don't want to trade off worker safety for some "maybe" consideration further down the line.

Or it could have been the gas blower. Lead abatement protocols would have had that dust highly confined under plastic sheeting and a blower running all the time, and it's hard to monitor anything when you're wearing what you have to wear with that.

But I'm very glad the fire is just going to add to the rich history of Notre-Dame, instead of ending it Man, the people singing just made it super awesome.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

Interesting article about restoring York Minster's Rose Window after the 1984 fire there:

BBC - North Yorkshire I love NY - Restoring the Rose Window

 

[Bartholomew Gallacher]

The whole roof framework of Notre Dame was made out of wood; centuries old wood (the eldest parts build in the 13th century), which of course was very dry and flammable. So finding "some dry, rotten wood" was not hard to do, but inevitable - though I doubt that it was rotten. If it were, it would have been replaced long ago, because rotten wood cannot handle the pressure of a roof structure.

 

[Cindy Claveau]

He was referring to playing in Assassin's Creed, part of which takes place in Paris.

 

[Cristiano]

He was referring to playing in Assassin's Creed, part of which takes place in Paris.

I know, I posted it for that reason . People who have never been to Notre Dame but experienced it in other ways were still affected by what happened.

 

[Cristiano]

3 French luxury dynasties lead $700 million fundraising effort for Notre Dame

 

[Sid]

One of the firefighters inside the cathedral yesterday evening and night:

Meet robot Colossus.
500 kg. Can handle up to 250 meters of waterhoses.

Colossus in action: