Notre Dame Is Burning

[Epsilon]

https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/notre-dame...-1.5098604

This does not look good at all.

[Pyeknu]

Oh, man...!

[Epsilon]

The central spire is now gone.



Prognosis is not good. Combination of difficulty getting firefighters there due to traffic  and the entire thing being made out of ancient wood that is going up like kindling. Very likely the building won't be saved.

[Dartz]

It's fucked. The whole roof went in.

One tradesman with one torch is going to have a lot of explaining to do. And his insurance is sure going to love him for it.

[Labster]

First Abraham Lincoln died, then the Titanic sunk, and now this. Happy April 15 everyone!

One tradesman with one torch is going to have a lot of explaining to do. And his insurance is sure going to love him for it.

And this is why Americans use flashlights instead of torches, much less flammable.

[Dartz]

It seems the core of the building will survive.

It's the timber shell on top of the roof that's burnt. The artwork and relics have been saved. The stone vaulted roof seems to have save the naves. There's no sign of fire in the lower windows - no glow through the windows at least. One of the attic windows may have been destroyed but from what I'm seeing there's a chance the core of the building has survived.

[Bob Schroeck]

Holy shit.

[robkelk]

It seems the core of the building will survive.

It's the timber shell on top of the roof that's burnt. The artwork and relics have been saved. The stone vaulted roof seems to have save the naves. There's no sign of fire in the lower windows - no glow through the windows at least.  One of the attic windows may have been destroyed but from what I'm seeing there's a chance the core of the building has survived.

And I haven't heard any reports that anyone died or was seriously injured. So what's been lost is historically-significant architecture... which can be rebuilt.

This is a good thing.

[Norgarth]

Holy shit.

More like Holy Smoke.

Luckily it's old enough to use a lot of stone as structural material, which likely helped restrict the spread of the fire.

[classicdrogn]

Only one fireman reported injured, out of more the 400 who responded. That's a good statistic for a beach party let alone something as dangerous as a fire in a huge old building.

[Black Aeronaut]

From what I'm hearing, Dartz has the right of it. Most of what burned up was the incredibly old wood-timbered roof. The chapel underneath is a frightful mess, but fortunately that's all it is - just a frightful mess.

It looks like they'll be able to rebuild. They'll probably demolish what's left of the original wooden roof, and then rebuild - probably using treated wood so that if it ever happens again, it won't go up as easily as it did.

EDIT: Oh, and two words: Sprinkler System.

[Labster]

Yeah, sprinkler systems weren't so popular in the 1200s. Same with running water, oddly enough.

The worst case scenario would have been the stone towers collapsing. The bells are extremely heavy, and hung on a wooden frame -- if this had burned, it could have destroyed the entire structure. Thankfully, the firefighters protected the towers. It looks like a lot of the most important stuff was saved. Statues were removed from the roof a week ago, saving them and lightening the load. Some art was removed during the fire. No one died. It easily could have been a much worse day.

I'm actually reminded of the day I visited St. Andrews Cathedral in Scotland. After being attacked, and allowed to fall into ruin, it's still palpably sacred ground. It's just that the roof of the church is now the sky, and the pews the stones of the Earth. Creation itself is God's altar, and it endures.

[Bob Schroeck]

According to CBS radio news on my way in to work this morning, the Parisians are giving thanks for the towers still standing. The structure is currently considered "unstable", though, and they're only starting the investigation although at this point there's no belief that it was anything other than accidental. And all the artifacts and relics have been moved to the Louvre. And plans to rebuild are already starting.

[robkelk]

CBC Radio is saying the artwork is still being moved to the Louvre, and authorities don't expect to be able to start moving items that are still inside Notre Dame until Friday.

This is not how people expected to spend Good Friday in Notre Dame.

As for rebuilding... all of the trees that are large enough to provide replacement beams that would be large enough were cut down a long, long time ago. It's going to take decades to rebuild, and I suspect much of that time will be spent waiting for oaks to grow large enough to provide the necessary timber.

[Epsilon]

As for rebuilding... all of the trees that are large enough to provide replacement beams that would be large enough were cut down a long, long time ago. It's going to take decades to rebuild, and I suspect much of that time will be spent waiting for oaks to grow large enough to provide the necessary timber.

Actually about 150 years ago they planted oak trees just in case this happened. It takes about 150 years for oaks to mature to a harvestable age...



https://twitter.com/_theek_/status/11179...36/photo/1

[Matrix Dragon]

Paris has had plans in place for if something happened to the Notre Dame. It's the sort of thing they prayed would never happen, but today it paid off, and so many of the priceless, irreplaceable artifacts were saved because of it.

And the Crown of Thorns was saved by the Chaplain of the Paris Fire Brigade. There is something wonderfully appropriate about that.

[classicdrogn]

The structure is currently considered "unstable",

That much is no surprise - for architecture and engineering, anything is considered hazardous until proven stable, not the other way around. For a cultural and historical location with the kind of tourist traffic Notre Dame sees, I'd expect weeks of safety inspections even if there hadn't been any significant damage, let alone having tons of burning roof and support beams collapsing onto the stone ceiling vaults.

[Black Aeronaut]

As for rebuilding... all of the trees that are large enough to provide replacement beams that would be large enough were cut down a long, long time ago. It's going to take decades to rebuild, and I suspect much of that time will be spent waiting for oaks to grow large enough to provide the necessary timber.

Actually about 150 years ago they planted oak trees just in case this happened. It takes about 150 years for oaks to mature to a harvestable age...



https://twitter.com/_theek_/status/11179...36/photo/1

Someone in that Twitter thread is saying that this story isn't true.  Can anyone find anything about it?

[Labster]

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19674101

TL;DR the Versailles oaks are for the spire, they need 13000 trees for the roof.

[Dartz]

Chunks of the vault around the transept seems to have collapsed when the spire did. The rose windows survived - despite close miss for one of them. Who'dve thought. Heat rises.

Looks like most of the spire was already charcoal when it collapsed into the actual church below. One wonders if the original builders hadn't had the same idea.

One wonders if they'll try for a meticulous and exacting 'restoration' - or take the opportunity to ad the stamp of another era to the structure. The broken vaults doo add some interesting light to the floor below.

[Inquisitive Raven]

One wonders if they'll try for a meticulous and exacting 'restoration' - or take the opportunity to ad the stamp of another era to the structure. The broken vaults doo add some interesting light to the floor below.

I'm sure the rabid preservationists would prefer the former, but one could argue (using Notre Dame de Chartres as an example) that the latter is actually traditional.

[hazard]

Note; the Notre Dame restoration fund is already at something like 500 million euros.

That took what, not even 2 days?

[classicdrogn]

It's the kind of high-profile thing that moves people to chip in, I guess. Even I respect its history and artistic merit despite being one of those "freedom from religion" types.

[hazard]

I'd have to check for other major corporate donors, but the oil company Total chipped in 100 million of that.

[Bob Schroeck]

CNN.com has an article with aerial photographs showing the damage.