scrubbedexpat142

Reuters news agency is quoting an official with the French firefighting team as saying: "We can now say that the structure of Notre-Dame has been saved from total destruction".

AFP is also reporting that the main structure has been "saved and preserved", citing an official.

Pulaski

That would be an issue with an automated system, but it would have been nice to have a plumbed-in system that could be manually connected to pumps or fire engines in the event of a major conflagration such as happened today.
Why would you wonder that?

scrubbedexpat099

A distribution system, well I have no idea what they had, seems the initial response was slow but who knows.

I am sure they had a plan.

It is in the middle of the night, no way they could determine the long term damage, that will take a lot of investigation.

Pulaski

When centuries old timber catches fire "a plan" isn't much use, "tinder dry" wouldn't begin to describe the state of the timber. Even several fire crews already in the roof space with hoses would have been challenged to stop it once it had been burning for a couple of minutes, and assuming the fire didn't start at the roof ridge it would have spread up to the ridge in seconds because of the dryness of the timber.

Boomhauer

I thought there would be a small chance they decided not to install sprinklers fearing a malfunctioning system or the sprinklers coming on from spirited candle lightning, would ruin the frescoes.

scrubbedexpat099

That would not surprise me, could well have been that the conclusion was that if a fire got hold unlikely there was not anything that could be done so the best bet was to try and stop any ignition. Which did not work in this case.

Rete

Yes, that is what I heard on CNN about 1/2 hour ago.

They are also saying that many of the more priceless artifacts were removed almost immediately once the fire started.

scrubbedexpat099

Reminds me of a friend who was working in a Building with a Halon system, he was very uneasy, following year somebody died in a similar building.

All a balance.

Pulaski

Sprinkler are not the panacea that the public at large seem to think they are, and even today residential buildings often don't have them, as one chip pan fire or fried turkey would lead to numerous units being flooded. \

Containment is the preferred solution for fires in many buildings, but if you have ever been up in the roof space of an old church, there is often a vast open framework of timber that, absent the sheet lead and being mounted high above the ground on masonry walls, would make a very good bonfire - it is open and drafty, and the roof deck makes a pretty good chimney. And in addition to it being hard for fire crews because a rood fire is high above ground, it may be rather hard to climb through and over the timber to even get to the actual seat of the fire.

Lion in Winter

If anyone would like to contribute towards the restoration/rebuilding/whatever they decide to do with it, here is the official site to do so

https://don.fondation-patrimoine.org...eDame/~mon-don




This window, at least, may have been saved.

zzrmark

I am quite annoyed at various hacks on cable 'news' networks (and apparently even Macron tweeted something) who have said that the facade is still standing so all they've got to do is rebuild the roof, ok the stone may be black, blah, blah, blah.

Do these people not usually get experts in to stop them from saying something stupid? No-one can say whether those walls/facades will be structurally sound until structural engineers get in there and assess the heat damage to the limestone.


For those interested: The timberwork in Notre Dame rose for over 60' above the vaults.

​​​​​​If I were a betting man, taking into account the time of day, I'd say that some tired slob of a workman carelessly chucked away his dog end at the end of his workshift...

Lion in Winter

They let them smoke while working on historic buildings? Are they insane?

Nutmegger

zzrmark

No, I don't suppose they do, but having witnessed French builders in action ( even their tools look like something out of a kiddies construction kit!) I wouldn't put it past some grizzled old grunt who should know better.

Pulaski

On what planet have you been living that you think that politicians have people to stop them saying something stupid? ….. If I have learnt anything in life so far, it is that the opposite seems to be true, most politicians surround themselves with people who encourage the stupidity!

There is a fairly high potential for the stonework to be seriously damaged as although limestone needs to be heated to around 825ºC to be turned into quicklime (calcium oxide) and wood only burns at about 600ºC, once the wood is charred, the charcoal carbon burns at upto 1,100ºC. So wherever the stone has been exposed to the highest temperatures the stone may have turned to calcium oxide which reacts with water, so the surface of that stone may effectively wash off when it rains.

I know less about the risk of limestone cracking when heated to a relatively high temperature, but I would guess that is also likely.