As far as we know, the fire was an accident (not foul play) -- but an extremely preventable one. There were works in progress on the roof of the cathedral, so people were coming and going, some of them possibly smoking, electrical devices were being used, etc.
And to monitor all this activity, there was only one guy, who had started on the job a couple of weeks earlier, who had received little to no training, and who didn't even know where the alarm was.
The point was to "save on costs", that is, in order to save maybe 1,300 euros / month over three months, the people in charge caused 1 billion euros of damage and lost irreparable historical artefacts.
There is a whole administrative department in France, whose sole responsibility is to make sure this kind of catastrophe never happens. At the very least, people should have been fired, from the site manager to the culture minister. Yet nobody's being investigated, let alone prosecuted or punished. Incredible.
Is this a true statement? I remember reading an extremely detailed play-by-play in one of the major papers a couple years ago that did a pretty good analysis of why a confluence of factors led to the fire. I don't know what the status is of any governmental, official investigation, but I at least saw some thorough investigative reporting from news organizations.
I agree with the sibling comment that this feels a little like scapegoating. Like many disasters like this, it wasn't just one thing, but a confluence of lots of little innocuous things (e.g. new guy on the job, can't remember all the details but maybe there was a phone number change IIRC, etc.) that led to the fire. Not saying a thorough investigation isn't warranted, but pretending these types of things are completely preventable is also a mistake IMO.
Edit: This is from a US government website, and I can't see all the details but it looks like someone did do a root cause analysis, https://www.govevents.com/details/37273/risk-management-case... :
In the days following the fire, questions began to arise about what could have caused the fire and, also about the nature and extent of the fire detection and protection systems. It turns out Notre Dame had one of the most sophisticated and elaborate fire safety systems ever designed, befitting a landmark of its stature. A team of experts had spent more than six years and untold funds developing the fire protection plan. Yet, when the system was put to a real test, it failed in spectacular fashion. How this could have happened, and what lessons can be learned from this tragic event with be discussed in detail.> Is this a true statement?
Yes, I think it is, unless one can point to an inquiry, not about the fire itself, and how it started (which has been done), but about the chain of responsibilities of the people in charge of the construction site at the time of the fire.
My point is, having just one guy with no training and no experience, monitor a landmark of this importance, during major works on the roof, is incredibly careless and unprofessional and should have consequences. But apparently it doesn't.
I lived in Paris for a time, I would say it is guaranteed some were smoking.
CV headline: "Oversaw safety at a national landmark -- Allowed only a single billion-dollar fire"
I don’t see how that is scapegoating.
Restoring a major historical building is always a one-off project. You follow the best practices, and the chance of a catastrophic outcome may be 10%, 1%, or 0.1%. You can't tell those scenarios apart in advance, because they all look very similar. Success is overwhelmingly likely. If a catastrophe occurs, the reason is often obvious in retrospect, and you will take that into account in the next project. But it clearly wasn't obvious in advance.
How would you know what and what not is going on in the background?
Just like we are rebuilding with original stones and techniques, one should perhaps argue that it should also be rebuilt with its original fire resilience too - ie. Low.
At this point, a fire once every hundred years or so is part of the culture, and to stop doing that is in a way destroying the character of the cathedral.
“As far as we know”
In the same sense of like “innocent until proven guilty”
But is that the right lens to be looking through here?
What is the rate of accidental church fires, let alone at somewhere that is such a treasured location as this?
Then factor in, wasn’t there an ongoing spate of what were clearly church arson attacks going on at the time?
Then factor in what you were describing of what seems to be an inexplicably lackadaisical approach of getting to the bottom of what occurred, giving the impression of some wanting above all else to divert attention from what one would think to be the most pertinent questions about what occurred.
Then do the calculus of, okay, if it could be shown to be a clear cut case of being accidental why wouldn’t people in a position to do so, show that? That would have minimal, if any, political ramifications. Whereas the political ramifications of other possible causes of the fire would be much higher.
It raises some questions doesn’t it?
Why aren’t people in positions of influence on this matter and in political leadership doing what their office calls on them to do?
And given what can be observed of their actions what is one to make of their intentions?
Why aren’t they safe guarding and defending the nation’s culture and heritage? Why are they leaving it open and vulnerable to attack?
https://apps.usfa.fema.gov/downloads/pdf/statistics/v2i7-508...
1,300/year in the US, 25% of which are arson. Clearly it's not a unique occurrence.
The reason the media and government were imposing the accident narrative while the cathedral was still burning is because this could have triggered the civil war.
This is also why the report on Bataclan massacre was not released to the general public, or why MLP was prosecuted for advocating terrorism (ffs) when she published pictures of terrorism acts condemning them on Twitter. The sheeps must sleep.
The censorship is also strong here: if I recall correctly I got a HN account banned here by the censor-in-chief for voicing my opinion on the matter at the time (which as a French I think is more informed than the random poster here).
How would that even look like? The conclusion that it is most likely an accidental fire was not reached by finding something in particular, but by not finding evidence indicating a criminal motive.
> It raises some questions doesn’t it?
You are are certainly raising a lot of questions. If you think something why don't you spell it out?
> Why aren’t they safe guarding and defending the nation’s culture and heritage? Why are they leaving it open and vulnerable to attack?
Why are you talking about an attack? Who attacked the church in your opinion and how?
What in particular would you like to be done by whom?
It can have been an accident, or not. If not, well there were a lot of arsons happening at the same , maybe, so it most likely was arson. Not calling it arson is clearly political. And that means it was arson, because people in power and the establishment cannot be trustesd. It also means the arson was caused by politians, and those people in power not protecting us. Because they fail to do their job
You are aware that the moment the fire actually was an accident, the other 90% of your comment are pretty close to a conspiracy theory?
The real hand work is on artistic stonework. That really is being done by hand. Omni CNC's proposals to make replacement parts with their stone-cutting computer controlled milling machines were turned down.[2]
[1] https://www.msn.com/en-us/video/travel/notre-dame-restoratio...
[2] https://www.omni-cnc.com/how-cnc-stone-cutting-machine-help-...
Being able to hire craftspeople who can do things “the old way” is apparently very important when dealing with (the bureaucracy around) old buildings. A lot of these buildings were built, rebuilt and expanded over centuries so they have different construction techniques between different areas which also needs specialized knowledge.
Then I see linked in that article that Notre Dame was a very early example of using iron staples! I can only think that they were used away from water, unlike Bath, where the repairs were on the window fixings.
This is often a contributing factor in the failure of modern steel-reinforced concrete structures.
Another example (and less debatable in its authenticity) Why the US Navy Manages Its Own Private Forest - https://www.military.com/history/why-us-navy-manages-its-own... /// https://ussconstitutionmuseum.org/2015/05/11/the-wooden-wall... (and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28793461 )
Is there any indication that they're improving the structure so it will be more fire proof? Or are they simply restoring it to the configuration that already failed?
780 years is not that bad for a building. (or, more precisely, the roof frame)
Macron & co had some idea for new things. They were all horrible. While I do think with good taste one could do some new things nicely ( e.g maybe a titanium-based roof instead of the lead one ), a restoration is the next best choice when proposed new things are crazy ugly/out-of-touch.
Btw, in our age, and since at least the early middle-age in France and old Europe, the use of old, large trees is the main political reason to keep alive some old, large forest with old trees. For ordinary wood they do plantations of fast-growing stuff and cut at maybe 40y or so.
And after all the Notre Dame is also a very historically significant building
At least 1k oaks were harvested from forests everywhere in France. [3] The majority of them were given for free to help in the rebuilding, and trees of this age/dimensions/quality are definitely not cheap. Both the cutting and moving of such trees -- between 6 and 13 meters, up to 15 tons! -- requires careful planning and flawless execution as they need to be taken out of the forests and preserved during their journey to the sawmill [4] in the North of France. (Here is also an interview of the sawmill operators [5].)
Crazy and fascinating project involving several rare craftsmanships.
(Everything is written in French below.)
[1] https://www.onf.fr/onf/+/bcf::constance-fulda-larbre-dans-la... [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qv38f3m3f2k [3] https://actu.fr/ile-de-france/ferrieres-en-brie_77181/notre-... [4] https://ici.radio-canada.ca/nouvelle/1876802/france-notre-da... [5] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aQtxUsU9T2Y&t=63s
It's probably not even remotely economic or "productive", but sometimes that's OK.
The vast majority of human activity isn't productive. And that's awesome. We've got so much wealth that we can afford to use it on things that are merely pretty or interesting, like video games and space telescopes and flowers.
It would be nice if we could use more of it to ensure that people have the basics, but that's rarely about lack of money. It's nearly always due to some more systemic problem that can't be fought just by throwing money at it.
It likely has economic impact vastly larger than any Starbucks via tourism.
Yes, it is the lack of action. People are selfish. End of story. We have the tech and knowledge to fix it all, but burning a ton of kerosene to travel to the other side of the world for 2 a weeks vacation is more desirable.
So, while some of the specifics are probably having to be identified and re-implemented, the basics are broadly understood. Stonemasons as a mass-employer has gone away, but like blacksmithing there are still individuals out there who carry on the tradition.
I could maybe understand artistically if the end result looks different. But ethically? It's a building, ethics don't apply to it.
Example: when removing waste with a chisel for joinery, going cross-grain allows popping large chunks with ease, rather than route them to dust. And it's a lot of fun!
Power tools do have a use for repeatability and mass-production, which may be useful in the Notre Dame build, but I find the carpenters' approach more honorable.
Mortise and tenon joints are fast and easy (read: cheap and quick) to make with a chisel and hammer. You can bet carpenters of old would be using nails and screws to build all kinds of things, if they were as cheap and abundant as they are now.
https://notesfrompoland.com/2022/09/21/bellotto-the-18th-cen...
Which was a Televangelical showpiece until it was purchased and renovated by the Roman Catholic diocese. Everything old is new again!