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from the they-don't-build-them-like-they-used-to dept.
The deputy mayor of Paris, Emmanuel Gregoire, said the cathedral had suffered "colossal damages", and the emergency services were trying to salvage the art and other priceless pieces stored in the cathedral. A cathedral spokesman said the entire wooden interior was burning and likely to be destroyed.
Sounds like the whole thing may go up in flames. There's a reason for modern building codes. A structure made entirely out of wood, is a huge bonfire, waiting to happen. Thankfully, at this time, there are no reported deaths.
[Update: 2019-04-16 @ 0222: The Cathedral is not "made entirely out of wood" as was suggested above. There is a great deal of stone work in its construction which can be readily seen on its Wikipedia page. I was at work when I heard news of the fire, immediately took a break, loaded the story queue on my phone, saw a story submission on the fire, and pushed it out to the community. In my haste to get the story out, I failed to notice the erroneous claim about wood construction. I apologize for the error. --martyb]
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/notre-dame-cathedral-fire-today-2019-04-15/
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 15 2019, @08:17PM (30 children)
I heard the government said they burned it down on accident while they tried to renovate the building. Others say there have been a series of "church attacks" in France recently so this is quite the coincidence.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 15 2019, @08:25PM (20 children)
Church attacks: https://www.newsweek.com/spate-attacks-catholic-churches-france-sees-altars-desecrated-christ-statue-1370800 [newsweek.com]
Officials "don't know why" religious extremists are trying to damage Catholic churches. Apparently it's a strange alliance of immigrants, islamists, feminists, and atheists.
(Score: 3, Touché) by Alfred on Monday April 15 2019, @08:30PM (12 children)
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 15 2019, @08:33PM (2 children)
I'll never go to mass in my life, in fact I despise the catholic church. But I still hate when historical monuments, artwork, and documents are lost.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Alfred on Monday April 15 2019, @08:39PM
(Score: 2) by PinkyGigglebrain on Tuesday April 16 2019, @04:13PM
Ditto.
Even if one does not follow or agree with a philosophy or religion it is still sad to see the creations they inspire be destroyed.
To know where you are you have to understand where you've been.
"Beware those who would deny you Knowledge, For in their hearts they dream themselves your Master."
(Score: 2) by Bot on Monday April 15 2019, @09:38PM (8 children)
Abuse victims should go for the testicles of the perpetrators instead of vandalizing things. It would speed up the eradication of the problem. In fact it would BE the eradication of the problem.
Account abandoned.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 15 2019, @10:32PM
The problem is, churches are breeding grounds for child molesters. Simply eradicate all perpetrators, and they will just grow back.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 15 2019, @10:45PM (6 children)
perpetrators can have vaginas, asshat
(Score: 3, Informative) by maxwell demon on Tuesday April 16 2019, @05:45AM (5 children)
In the Catholic Church, only men are allowed to become priests. Therefore all abuses done by Catholic priests are abuses done by men. I'm also pretty sure they won't consider someone with vagina as man.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 16 2019, @03:26PM
Perhaps not, but they may consider them a demon and there is no church law against demons becoming priests (although no one is happy when that happens).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 16 2019, @05:01PM (2 children)
You make the incorrect assumption that all perpetrators have to be priests.
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Tuesday April 16 2019, @07:22PM (1 child)
Depends on what you mean with "all perpetrators". All perpetrators the original message referred to? Yes, I made that assumption. Because of the context of that message. And I continue to maintain that assumption, because I don't believe that is is incorrect.
All perpetrators that exist? Of course not. But that wasn't the topic of the thread.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 19 2019, @02:28PM
Ok, so Catholic Church is made up entirely of priests, with no females involved anywhere at any level. That is even more fucked up than I thought.
(Score: 2) by DeVilla on Thursday April 18 2019, @02:23AM
I was assuming in California they would be required to, at least officially.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 15 2019, @08:31PM (4 children)
Those "officials" do not seem honest. They lumped together everyone they hate, and blame them all for church burnings.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 15 2019, @08:39PM (2 children)
So you think it is a false flag? The government agents are doing this to stir up division amongst the yellow vests?
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 15 2019, @09:11PM (1 child)
Yep, it was linked to the 9/11 attacks by AI but now they are trying to cover it up:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-04-15/youtube-flags-notre-dame-fire-as-9-11-conspiracy-in-wrong-call [bloomberg.com]
(Score: 2) by Barenflimski on Tuesday April 16 2019, @05:35PM
I saw this same banner. I wondered why it was showing me a banner explaining 9/11 to me.
I saw this same banner under the launch for the Falcon Heavy a couple of days ago. Maybe it confused the launch tower and the rocket as two towers and the exhaust gases for smoke from a fire?
This must fall under not so intelligent part of the AI?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 16 2019, @12:49AM
It is strange that satanists are missing from the list.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 15 2019, @08:33PM
Nope. Bannon did it.
(Score: 2) by RamiK on Tuesday April 16 2019, @03:49AM
Be sure to also look for long haired blonds wearing black t-shirts and sounding like the Swedish Chef: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_Norwegian_black_metal_scene#Church_arsons_and_attempts [wikipedia.org]
compiling...
(Score: 4, Interesting) by pTamok on Monday April 15 2019, @09:19PM (4 children)
If I had to bet, I would say it is likely to have been caused by inadequate precautions taken during the renovation. It seems that roof renovations are particularly hazardous for old buildings - the use of molten hydrocarbon products (usually bitumen) for weatherproofing means that there are often potent sources of ignition in places where there would not usually be, and all it takes is one slapdash worker...
That said, really old roofing can be surprisingly resilient to fire. The roof of Notre Dame has collapsed, but in other instances, the fire can be managed by rapidly removing the top layer of rafters/laths and lead/tiles, exposing the support beams. Solid wood burns slowly, and if the individual beams are far enough apart (which they usually are), they tend to extinguish, especially when dampened. So if a thatched building catches fire, you rake off the burning thatch, exposing the beams, which you dampen down. Old buildings that are still standing tend to be over-engineered (the under-engineered ones collapsed into ruins before the present), and wooden beams can still be structurally sound after the outside half-inch or so of word has been charred. The key is to remove the light stuff as fast as possible.
Airport fire departments use foam [wikipedia.org] to extinguish burning jet-fuel. It's not environmentally friendly, but I do wonder for historic buildings whether it might be worth fire departments having the option to foam the building.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 15 2019, @11:15PM (2 children)
It would have been worthwhile to have faerial water tankers on call to put it out. If those could put out a forest fire they could surely put out a relatively tiny cathedral.
(Score: 2) by number11 on Tuesday April 16 2019, @03:46AM
Two problems.
1) The impact of the water might have collapsed the roof. It did collapse eventually, but that wasn't the outcome they wanted.
2) Apparently aerial water tankers aren't all that good at stopping forest fires. (Faerial ones might be better, but the fairies get their wings singed, and we know what happened to Icarus.) They help some in the early period before the ground crews can get in, but not much after. Politicians, on the other hand, like them, because it's a great visual for how they're doing something. https://boingboing.net/2019/04/15/mediagenic-boondoggles.html#more-710888 [boingboing.net] (I can't get the LA Times story to display properly.)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 16 2019, @02:23PM
faerial noun US
an imaginary creature with piloting skills, often having his/her own wings, thus having a superb understanding of faeriodynamics
(Score: 2) by driverless on Wednesday April 17 2019, @06:22AM
It'll be careless workmen. Any number of historic buildings have been burnt down due to careless workmen, or at least a combination of the fact that the buildings are tinderboxes that predate any modern fire code by centuries, and careless workmen. It's a lethal combination.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 15 2019, @11:30PM (2 children)
Isn't it odd that the government was so quick to say "it was an accident, not terrorism" shortly before they arrested those four Muslims with a drone?
(Score: 2) by Alfred on Tuesday April 16 2019, @04:15PM
Totally need a source for your drone thing. People need to know about it. If it hasn't been scrubbed yet.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 17 2019, @12:45PM
There is absolutely no evidence of muslim involvement with materials near the Notre Dame that could have been used to start the fire [telegraph.co.uk].
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 16 2019, @01:42AM
Burned down by accident, huh? Maybe it was for the insurance.