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Yep.

It’s about as serial as serial can get.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news

Spire has already collapsed, and looking at footage, I’d be surprised if anything survives. 850 years of history, up in smoke.

Cause is thought to be renovation.

Looks like pretty much just the walls standing at this point.

i work at a travel company, everyone's been talking about it all day. Sucks to see it go :( Hope something can be salvaged

The vaults might survive, but would likely be heavily water damaged.

 Necros wrote:
i work at a travel company, everyone's been talking about it all day. Sucks to see it go :( Hope something can be salvaged

This does not just "Sucks to see it go", this is a bloody catastrophy, hopefully they could manage to save people, books and art, if not i dare not think about it.

Yeah this is a pretty major event. Wonder how it started?

It was magnificent in the summer of 05 when i was in France Awe-inspiring It pains me greatly.

 queen_annes_revenge wrote:
Yeah this is a pretty major event. Wonder how it started?

Renovation works.Considering a lot of it was very old wood that can be iron hard to drill into. We live in an old house and you have to use candle wax on the drill bit to help lubricate and drill in short bursts otherwise you build up a LOT of heat (and strip the drill). Could be something as simple as someone doing that and building up enough heat in tinder dry wood that it caught light and wasn't spotted in time. Once super dry wood gets some heat into it and starts burning it can spread insanely fast. Considering that the building likely had artwork, fabrics, wood and other flammable materials there's a lot to catch and burn once it gets going.

It might also be that any sprinkler system was offline if it had one (being old and likely listed it might have had one or might only have had one in high risk areas or none at all).

After that you've got a whole rafter of things that could have caused it from a spark to someone dropping a cigarette to an accident etc....

This is heartbreaking. The pictures are horrific.

“Good news: all the works of art were saved,” reported French journalist Nicolas Delesalle. “The treasure of the Cathedral is intact, the Crown of thorns, the Holy sacraments.”

per Yahoo

Definitely tragic. I can't fathom that phone call from the rennovation company to the owners/protectors ...

 Frazzled wrote:

“Good news: all the works of art were saved,” reported French journalist Nicolas Delesalle. “The treasure of the Cathedral is intact, the Crown of thorns, the Holy sacraments.”

per Yahoo

Well that's something at least.

I didn't get a chance to go in when I went on holiday as a wee lad just appreciated it from across the river, I'd always hoped to go back to Paris one day to see it properly. What baffles me is the idea that it was the restoration work that caused the blaze - how can people working on such a piece of history have been so careless?

This is horrible. Even though from what I've heard nobody has died or even been injured, the loss of such a historic landmark is a horrible tragedy for any nation.

Oh dear, there's also apparently a bigger problem: the roof tiles were all 5mm thick lead, so there's now about 210,000kg of lead burning off right next to a river in the middle of a city. Christ on a bike.

BBC is saying 400 firefighters there inside and out. Also says fighting to keep the bells from falling and the fire spreading to the North Tower.

Can lead burn? I know it melts easily but surely it can't burn,,,,,

That's got to be dangerous as I'd wager a lot of the internals of those towers would be wood so if the bell supports weaken or break they would come crashing a long way down with a huge amount of force.

konst80hummel wrote:
Can lead burn? I know it melts easily but surely it can't burn,,,,,

Depending on the intensity of the blaze, it could hypothetically reach the boiling point of lead, which would release lead vapour.

konst80hummel wrote:
Can lead burn? I know it melts easily but surely it can't burn,,,,,

Lead melts at 327.5 degrees Celsius, and the resulting fumes and particles are toxic.

Visited back in 2006. I found it a genuinely moving experience.

Apparently a French official said they're more optimistic now about saving the structure than they were a couple hours ago. Notre Dame will rise again...a fitting message for Holy Week.

 Overread wrote:

 queen_annes_revenge wrote:
Yeah this is a pretty major event. Wonder how it started?

Renovation works.Considering a lot of it was very old wood that can be iron hard to drill into. We live in an old house and you have to use candle wax on the drill bit to help lubricate and drill in short bursts otherwise you build up a LOT of heat (and strip the drill). Could be something as simple as someone doing that and building up enough heat in tinder dry wood that it caught light and wasn't spotted in time. Once super dry wood gets some heat into it and starts burning it can spread insanely fast. Considering that the building likely had artwork, fabrics, wood and other flammable materials there's a lot to catch and burn once it gets going.

It might also be that any sprinkler system was offline if it had one (being old and likely listed it might have had one or might only have had one in high risk areas or none at all).

After that you've got a whole rafter of things that could have caused it from a spark to someone dropping a cigarette to an accident etc....

Yeah I was thinking the renovation works must've had something to do with it. I like to think that if you were drilling in that situation you'd have a third man ready with a fire extinguisher.

 queen_annes_revenge wrote:

Yeah I was thinking the renovation works must've had something to do with it. I like to think that if you were drilling in that situation you'd have a third man ready with a fire extinguisher.

Depending on the exact way the woodwork was put together, a fire extinguisher may not even have made an iota of difference.

At least the bell towers seem to have been saved now. It's not a completely unmitigated disaster, it's just completely awful.

Over the last year, the trust looking after the Cathedral have been constantly asking for money to stop it collapsing, giving it 5 years max before it would have started to crumble. This is one of the major problems with lack of funding in heritage across the world. The exact same problems that occurred in the Brazil national museum fire not that long ago.

As for the cause, with most renovation work in historic buildings, what ends up causing the fire is basic mistakes, especially little money saving corners have been cut.

I'd put money on lead roof in situ repair. Soldering isn't done on historic lead because it isn't the same composition as is typically used now. When the burning is done in situ it'll heat up too much and the very old damaged wood will go up instantly, particularly in a high climate area like Paris.

It's genuinely awful to watch, especially the video of the roof collapse.

Although of course it will eventually be rebuilt, its not just the medieval features. It's the centuries of work and rework, building and rebuilding. Unfortunately, we've lost all those layers. It's not just the 'original' masterpiece we're losing, but the culmination of some 900 years of history, which can't just be rebuilt.

The Hunchback’s gonna be pissed.

A third of the roof's still intact and it looks like the oldest of the famous rose windows, dating from 1225, is safe for now as well. The 13-tonne 16th-century bell and all the smaller ones are likewise seemingly out of danger.

I wonder if it's been deliberate. Churches in France have been getting attacked. Although apparently it was having renovation work done, so it could have happened naturally.

Glasgow Art School caught fire twice recently during renovation restoring it from a fire that had happened previously.

Sure, there's been vandalism aimed at churches in France lately, but considering eyewittnesses placed the fire in the wooden support beams of the roof soon after the fire alarm went off anyone doing this on purpose would have had to get access to the roof, which further means sneaking past a bunch of renovation workers undetected. Incredibly tragic accident is far more likely.

Big E says ‘no’ to religion.

Dude...

I went there when I was much younger, but I don't really remember it well. Damn. One of the most iconic structures in the world.