Fire at Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris

The stonework don't look too bad, I thought it would be much worse. Inner columns and arches look intact.

Thargor wrote: »

How did those candles survive?

simply not too much heat in there...

seamus wrote: »

The money raised will just get it repaired quicker than it would otherwise have been repaired anyway.

Probably not, seeing as there's a shortage of suitably trained stone-masons and carpenters. But if you're a homeless person in Dublin with a knack for shaping stone or wood, there are 300 paid apprenticeships on offer from September, and it's a damn sight cheaper to live/rent in rural France than Dublin. There's a stone-masonry school not far from me that you can enroll in and I'll put you up for free if you work on my roof in your spare time.

gozunda wrote: »

So tell me where the rich people back in 1163 have their names inscribed in the historical record? Or the people who paid for the Basilica built before that or maybe even Gallo-Roman temple which was first built on the site?

Back in those days, illiteracy was quite fashionable, so the rich people thought didn't worry too much about putting their names on a plaque. Instead, they/their faces were used in the paintings and sculptures that went into the building afterwards. So you - in the 21st Century - could be looking at a picture of the Last Supper and seeing twelve apostles, but your illiterate ancestor in 1519 would have seen the faces of twelve rich blokes that he knew.

Sometimes the tables were turned, though. If the local bishop was known to be an evil bollix or a kiddy-fiddler or some other kind of swampdweller, he'd find his face carved into the wood or stone in an out-of-the-way corner of the church, either as a devil, or as a "tormented soul", or one of the gargoyles on the roof.

seamus wrote: »

"There are millions of children who could use a basic education"

"Tough, there's a really old cathedral that needs to be rebuilt so people can go look at it".

See, it works both ways.

You're basically agreeing with me; that resources should be allocated across a much wider spectrum of needs than all focussed in one spot at a time.

Money being offered is private and by choice, whatever that choice may be. This is that lazy whataboutery that refuses to recognise that choice on the grounds that you believe it is misplaced or that you have your own personal grouse with what people with a lot of money do with it. This type of project offers clear results as against flashing the cash on areas in which can see no solution but many opinions.

5 years to rebuild it according to Macron, sounds about right looks like a massive job.

Id be more worried about the many original works of art that are in there, paintings, sculptures, relics etc

Was this an accident or was it deliberate.

The bombing of churches over Easter seems to be a theme (cf Sri Lanka bombings).

Can anyone link to something that says it wasn't deliberate.

4ensic15 wrote: »

With a deliberate fire one would expect to see some evidence of the use of accelerants. Give that a lot of the lowere levels haven't been badly damages it appears that accelarants were not used.

In fairness, a cup of petrol on a beam would be enough to really get it going.

It probably wasn't arson but given the number of attacks on Churches in France in the last 2 years and the reoeated targeting of Notre Dame by Islamists in the last few years, one can hardly view it as Implausible.

A lot of copies of the Hunchback of Notre Dame have been bought in bookshops here since the fire

The biggest problem with the arson conspiracy is that the alarm went off, a fire officer went up to look (as per site-specific fire-alarm protocols, saw nothing suspicious and gave everyone the all clear. Some 15-20 minutes later, a second alarm went off, two fire officers went up to look and saw the roof timbers already ablaze. The only way the arson conspiracy can work would be for the first fire officer to be in on it, and given the personal attachment people working in and for the cathedral have for the building, that seems very unlikely.

There does, however, seem to be an inconsistency regarding these old timbers, the established in-case-of-fire protocol and the actual evolution. My house is held together with similar big old beams (though only 300 years old) and they are damn near impossible to set fire to without chopping them up with a chainsaw and putting them into a well-lit wood-burning stove. There was an article in the NY Times the other day wherein some American firefighters took issue with the Architecte de France responsible for drawing up Notre Dame's fire safety statement, and specifically this point about how quickly big old beams catch light. Having seen the crap that passes for good construction in the States, and having witnessed with my old beams not catching fire despite being exposed to naked flames, I'm inclined to side with the French guy ... but there was obviously some other factor involved in this incident for it to spread so quickly and so disastrously.

My own suspicion is that it'll be found to be directly due to some aspect of the renovation work - Li-ion batteries in power tools, stored materials that acted as accelerants, or some weird unfortunate coincidence such as sawdust/wood shavings being swept over an exposed electrical connection when creating an access for repairs.

CelticRambler wrote: »

The biggest problem with the arson conspiracy is that the alarm went off, a fire officer went up to look (as per site-specific fire-alarm protocols, saw nothing suspicious and gave everyone the all clear. Some 15-20 minutes later, a second alarm went off, two fire officers went up to look and saw the roof timbers already ablaze. The only way the arson conspiracy can work would be for the first fire officer to be in on it, and given the personal attachment people working in and for the cathedral have for the building, that seems very unlikely.

There does, however, seem to be an inconsistency regarding these old timbers, the established in-case-of-fire protocol and the actual evolution. My house is held together with similar big old beams (though only 300 years old) and they are damn near impossible to set fire to without chopping them up with a chainsaw and putting them into a well-lit wood-burning stove. There was an article in the NY Times the other day wherein some American firefighters took issue with the Architecte de France responsible for drawing up Notre Dame's fire safety statement, and specifically this point about how quickly big old beams catch light. Having seen the crap that passes for good construction in the States, and having witnessed with my old beams not catching fire despite being exposed to naked flames, I'm inclined to side with the French guy ... but there was obviously some other factor involved in this incident for it to spread so quickly and so disastrously.

My own suspicion is that it'll be found to be directly due to some aspect of the renovation work - Li-ion batteries in power tools, stored materials that acted as accelerants, or some weird unfortunate coincidence such as sawdust/wood shavings being swept over an exposed electrical connection when creating an access for repairs.

What the sources are saying about that is the fire detection system misreported the location of the fire. That location was checked and nothing found. All the while the real fire burned merrily. So the first person who checked the fire location would not need 'to be in on it" tbh.

I agree with you about old beams especially oak - in my experience they do not burn easily.


https://nypost.com/2019/04/16/alarm-rang-out-at-notre-dame-23-minutes-before-fire-was-found/

Anteayer wrote: »

Wood can burn quite oddly. It can be initially extremely difficult to light, but then when the temperature is reached you get pyrolysis which starts to produce flammable gasses within the wood itself and you get release of oils. Those two factors can turn what seems like a very hard to light substance into one that burns quite aggressively.

Add to that the height and the structure and you've huge updrafts and so on which could have it burning with conditions more like stove.

We also have no idea if that wood contained oils either naturally or if it had been treated with them over its 800+ years.

Also when you look at how the roof structure entirely disintegrated and burnt pretty heavily, there's really no way someone could have used an accelerant as it would have had to have been used all over the entire structure and that would have been VERY obvious. So, it would suggest it was a self-sustaining fire.

Electrical faults can also be very high risk as they can produce extremely high temperatures.

With regard to the point that an accelerant would have been needed to be used "all over the entire structure"

Afaik all that is normally required to cause surroundings structures to catch fire is a point source with very high temperatures leading to a flashover effect and the potential to cause an unconstrained conflagration

Although a huge oak beam is generally difficult to get burning, as smaller timbers fuel the fire and the temperature rises, the timbers will eventually spontaneously ignite in a phenomena known as a flashover, when everything combustible suddenly becomes engulfed in fire," says Keith Atkinson, a fire safety consultant at Heritage and Ecclesiastical Fire Protection.

For an Interesting article on the fire - See:
https://www.wired.co.uk/article/notre-dame-fire-physics-firefighting

https://cruxnow.com/church-in-europe/2019/03/28/vandals-arsonists-target-french-catholic-churches/

The trend of setting Churches on fire in the run up to the Notre Dame fire would lead one to believe it's connected.