I hope all the firefighters come out of this alive, it sounds like they are fighting hard to save what is left…. the Northern Tower.

JHJ – must you always post as if you were a microcephalous idiot?

Thanks to Dogtanian, I’ve had a deep mistrust of the French church since my childhood…

But anyway, why would an eternal and omnipresent uber-being allow one of their pimpest cribs to burn down?

But anyway, why would an eternal and omnipresent uber-being allow one of their pimpest cribs to burn down?

Right. Stop now or I’ll stop you.

If only they’d have listened to the world authority on firefighting and got the flying water tankers in earlier

So horrible to watch the massive fire at Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. Perhaps flying water tankers could be used to put it out. Must act quickly!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 15, 2019

No thinking peeps, it’s the law!!

No thinking peeps, it’s the law!!

You need to up your meds

Just saw the drone pics on ITV news.

The whole building, the complete interior is literally gutted/on fire.😟

Posted at 22:0322:03
Firefighter ‘seriously injured’
A French firefighting official has told Reuters that one fireman has been seriously injured tackling the blaze.

From the BBC

Oh s***. ITV just said none was injured.😟

Must have been hellish trying to tackle this.

If only they’d have listened to the world authority on firefighting and got the flying water tankers in earlier

You almost killed me with that twitter link Binners, choked on my food laughing at that. 😀

A French firefighting official has told Reuters that one fireman has been seriously injured tackling the blaze.

Yeah, part of me had a bad feeling about this – I know human lives are worth more than a building but I’m not sure all of the French would agree. This is a national tragedy for them and I suspect the French fire service have probably gone above and beyond what people would expect of them.

The interior structure is mostly wood apparently.

I don’t see them saving anything.

Massive historic loss. It’ll look like whitby Abbey by morning 🙁

Depressing isn’t it Matty?

I hope we review the funding out National treasures get in light of this….

I guess some of us will be visiting a 50-70 percent reconstruction in 2039.

Tragic for history and architecture

A French official and the Paris fire chief have told the Associated Press that they think Notre Dame Cathedral’s landmark rectangular towers have been saved from the fire that caused horrific damage.

The structure of the cathedral has been saved, and the fire has been stopped from spreading to the northern belfry, Paris police said.

The junior interior minister Laurent Nuñez says that authorities remain “prudent” but are “much more optimistic” than they were earlier tonight.

Paris fire commander Jean-Claude Gallet says that a major accomplishment of the hundreds of firefighters was stopping the flames from spreading to the north tower belfry.

Gallet says two-thirds of Notre Dame’s roofing “has been ravaged.” He says one firefighter was injured, adding that fire crews will keep working overnight to cool down the structure.

Sounds like they have managed to contain it now.

Ever get the feeling that the one true god ain’t too happy with all these kiddy fiddlers and charlatans dressed in freemason costumes using the threat of eternal omnipresence for their own evil ends?

You really are a very sad little man who needs to get a life. I hear the Life Shop has a sale on, maybe you could pop down and get one, while there are some left.

Hope he’s OK…

It’s a proper living building, Notre Dame, parts of the fabric are truly ancient but a lot has been rebuilt or revamped over the years. So I guess it’s a question of what’s really gone and what’s savable and what was less or more important. The tower’s relatively recent frinstance and a lot of the rest was built/rebuilt at roughly the same time. And apparently a lot of the contents were removed for the renovations.

So who knows. Fingers crossed though. I thought Cutty Sark was lost when she went up and York Minster is still glorious today despite the fire…

I suppose the fire fighters will have to concentrate on not letting it spread to neighbouring buildings and just let it burn out 🙁

The crazy bastards have already managed to recover these…..I mean that place must still be **** smouldering and yet….

Rector of Notre-Dame, Patrick Jacquin, has reportedly told local media that the Crown of Thorns and the Tunic of St Louis have both been recovered.

Matty

I suppose the fire fighters will have to concentrate on not letting it spread to neighbouring buildings and just let it burn out

Doesn’t sound to me like they stood back and let it run it’s course! I suppose we will know the full story eventually, I’d be riveted hearing it.

Macron says the worst has been avoided and that “we will rebuild Notre Dame together”, announcing an international fundraising campaign is to be launched.

Swift and strong response from Macron like I suspected would happen. I do wonder why the French state can’t cough up the money though?

If it’s anything similar to the way our ancient buildings are protected (in my experience) it will have had very modern cutting edge fire detection systems, it wouldn’t matter a jot as a building like that was never designed to prevent fire spread or assist firefighting actions.

The buildings I know about have a very strong ‘salvage’ policy, more about saving the contents than the structure. Efforts would be poured mainly into that.

The Paris pompiers are a truly superb fire service, if they couldn’t save it I believe no one could.

Very sad but it will no doubt rise again.

P.s at some point Winchester Cathedral has lost a large part of its roof to fire, the rebuild itself counts as ‘historical’

Cheers Lummox, is it the amount of fire retardant that these fire suppression systems flow – simply not enough to deal with how fast and hard the fire spreads in these kinds of buildings? Can they be improved upon?

Genuinely curious.

Doesn’t sound to me like they stood back and let it run it’s course! I suppose we will know the full story eventually, I’d be riveted hearing it.

Yeh incredible response by the French emergency services.. The priority would surely be to stop any spread of the fire to neighbouring buildings though.

If only we had this in the UK for the grenfell disaster.

.I mean that place must still be **** smouldering and yet….

I think they were going in to grab those whilst the place was still ablaze. Just in case it spread to where they were.

Well, I thought it was a total write off when that drone picture was posted. However, it looks like the nutters have managed to limit a lot of the damage to the halls – Guardian sources are saying a lot seems to have survived and it’s the roof and spire that has been gutted.

Vaulting has mostly survived the collapse of the medieval roof so interior remarkably intact.

The roof was on top of the stone vault.
Fire stayed on top of it. And they were limiting amount of water used to stop the weight of the water collapsing the stone vault.
1000 people were inside when fire started, all evacuated safely.
A French family has already pledged 100 millions euros for the renovation.

Yeh incredible response by the French emergency services.. The priority would surely be to stop any spread of the fire to neighbouring buildings though.

@mattyfez

If only we had this in the UK for the grenfell disaster

are you saying LFB stood back and did nothing at Grenfell?

armchair firefighters are out in force today

I’m a big fan of old churches and this is very much a painful thing to witness, been lucky enough to visit many times over the years and it is a lovely building.

I am very glad its not saint chapelle though

Weirdly we are going to Paris this weekend, I hope my tourist dollars are put directly into its rebuild

We were having a walk round at work for insurance assessment and two of the questions immediately asked were regarding the cladding and who it was supplied by and whether it was up to the latest fire certification and then if the roof was vented. If the fire brigade knows all people are out and safe they will not commit people inside in to fire fighting such warehouses.
As for fire suppression such as sprinklers it can cause as much total loss to stock as the actual fire.
I can’t see how any sprinkler system coukd have been fitted in Notre Dame, it’s not really a viable option for such a building.

Genuinely upsetting. We were lucky enough to attend mass there a few years ago and that whole area was my favourite area of Paris.

@raybanwomble

im not a technical fire expert, just a firefighter grunt who has had the pleasure of working in and around some very historical buildings and aware of the firefighting plans.

i don’t know if Notre Dame had any kind of fixed firefighting system, like alarm systems or sprinklers for example. I doubt it had sprinklers as accidental activation would cause just as much damage as a fire themselves. The building I know has a VESDA system (very early smoke detection) system fitted, it’s inconspicuous and very effective at detecting very small amounts of smoke – where there should be none at all.

So the alarm will warn of the presence or suspected presence of a fire. The problem comes from the design of the structure and the speed and weight of attack.

When most of these historical buildings were built they simply weren’t designed with any knowledge of fire engineering, some fantastic architectural solutions but nothing to prevent fire spread or assist firefighting operations.

Fixed firefighting solutions, sprinklers etc rely in part on the structure of the building to assist in their effectiveness.

but no one wants to retro fit those features into a great hallway etc.

Using Winchester cathedral as an example, however it quite possibly may not be of a similar build to Notre Dame as they were all doing things their way at that time.

Access for the upper roof levels relies on aerial appliances to arrive from southampton and Basingstoke, park, jack up and then reach little doors in the roof, these doors lead to little timber walkways and crawlways suspended in the ceiling void. Crawling along these allow you to get to the bell ringing room. The other option to get here is climbing up one of the many corkscrew stone staircases that in places are no wider than your shoulders (thoroughly recommend a tour of the roof if you’re ever able- fascinating)

As a fire service we simply could not get the personnel to the incident, and then to the scene of the fire before it had a chance to take hold. Once it had a foothold extinguishing the fire would be a very tough task, breathing apparatus wearers for example would struggle to use the stairwells. Which means a different tactic must be employed- ie salvage.

Knowing these things was one of the reasons I was so against the removal of vehicles and personnel from Winchester. That cathedral is now protected by 4 firefighters day and night, relying on resources being available and getting to the incident.

Makes you think.

Stairwell at Winchester cathedral

Roof crawlways

https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-wC2p0bLuVww/VQ21M8xgwjI/AAAAAAAAW4U/5wc6CqWg31A/s1600/Winchester%2BCathedral%2B21mar15%2B(12).JPG

Aerial appliance access

https://www.hampshirechronicle.co.uk/news/13506225.a-wwii-fire-pump-has-been-lifted-back-onto-the-roof-of-winchester-cathedral/#gallery0

all given to give context to the huge task the pompiers would have faced. Knowing how the Winchester firefighters feel about the cathedral and Winchester as a whole I know how much the pompiers would have endured to save as much of that monument as possible.

A friend of mine is doing renovation work on Westminster, in the roof and doing a lot to replace the old timber there..

Wonder what his day will be like today.

Was thinking about the Palace of Westminster job – probably the closest equivalent in terms of potential historic loss in this country.

I’m sure that fag breaks will have to be done discreetly today 🙂

announcing an international fundraising campaign is to be launched.

Pretty sure the catholic church has more than enough money to rebuild it or the insurance pay out.

Pretty sure the catholic church has more than enough money to rebuild it or the insurance pay out.

They don’t own it.