I saw that tweet and was going to post it earlier today, but resisted the urge to repost it here, and decided that not everything had to be about Trump.
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No idea whether that’s a fully-informed statement, but I kind of have to assume that other countries’ governments are at least marginally less likely to issue baldly false remarks that can be easily disproven within hours by the simple progression of time, because otherwise I really might just lose my mind completely.
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It doesn’t. This is a great loss to French culture. And to see what Victor Hugo pushed so hard to shame Paris into preserving go up in flames just has has me saddened and angry at the world. I just hope they can find a way to restore it again.
It’s just a hard line for me to walk. Knowing it’s attention seeking and trying to ignore it. Then knowing it’s wrong and unhelpful and wishing that the same kind of public shame would somehow break through to that man.
Sorry.
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I’d say it’s at least been largely successful, based on this drone shot that a French reporter posted on Twitter:
There a lot of fire at the top of the structure, but not a lot of light coming out of the windows, so the interior may yet still be largely intact.
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This one is not too bad too :
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Not to be an ass, but I think you mean pompiers. I wouldn’t expect plombiers (plumbers) to be able to put out a fire, especially not one of this magnitude. Still, despite having witnessed the fire in person it was hard not to giggle a little when I read that, so I guess I am an ass…
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Excellent point!
I was hoping the stone vault was protecting it, too, but was concerned that the spire may have collapsed through it.
[Sorry if this is stating the obvious, but a couple of earlier comments seem to have missed it: a mediaeval church’s ‘roof’ is separate to its ‘ceiling’ or ‘vault’, and the latter is the stronger, possibly fire-resistant one. The roof is primarily weatherproofing and decoration.]
Incidentally, I’ve heard an informed but unconfirmed report that the spire’s statuary had already been removed for renovation.
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I just walked by about 30 minutes ago – at least as close as the police would let the general public – and to my admittedly untrained eye it appeared they were getting the fire under control and that it was nowhere near the towers. I also had a different angle than the one in this photo. Reports I read earlier in the evening suggested that firefighters were having a tough time reaching certain parts of the fire and that they were focusing on saving the contents of the cathedral.
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Ugh. That looks bad. I was holding out hope the vault would stay up. That drone shot is awful. 
Since the fire is just footsteps from the Seine, I wouldn’t put it past a set of talented, determined plumbers to be able to bodge something up that would help.
I also have kid restrictions - I’m waiting until my youngest is a bit older before we do a large trip to Europe. We’re not rich enough to go often, and I want her to remember it.
My oldest is in French Immersion and so very desperately wants to go to Paris, so I’ll be happy to take her. The hard part is saving up the money to do it, though.
And Jules Verne museum? Sign me the fuck up!
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No, the drone shot suggests the vault is still there!
Someone was kind enough to post this to twitter: an ‘exploded’ view of Notre Dame showing the roof space well above the vault. It pretty much matches what the drone saw.
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Here’s how the wooden structures in the bell tower look: (I’ve took this photo two years ago)
There were lots of wooden support structures:
Exactly. Here’s one more photo I took from the rooftops:
And a beautiful spiral staricase:
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Oh that’s great! I didn’t realize the outer stone shell extended that far beyond the vault.
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Never been to the cathedral, but one of the more typical fires that happen during renovations is leaving a pile of oil soaked rags together (usually linseed oil). Linseed oil has many uses but one of the more popular uses is to finish or varnish wood. If this was going on there then it’s highly plausible the contractors did this as many seem to be ignorant the spontaneous combustible nature of linseed oil soaked rags.
Investigators will never find evidence of it, they’ll be burned up in the fire. The only way they’d find out is if the contractors walked through the site with the investigator and TRUTHFULLY told them the exact nature of their operations and timeline. I don’t think any contractor would be truthful of that considering they wouldn’t want to be wearing the blame hat for this fire, especially when they should know the issue with linseed oil soaked rags. It can happen anywhere between 1-10hrs for them to spontaneously burst into flames.
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As a follow-up, the BBC has posted a link to another tweet with video from above the roofline. Lots of flaming timbers up there, but again not a lot of light coming out of the windows just below it that would suggest major breaches in the vault:
The spire collapsing through the ceiling was a real worry for me too, but I guess all of the scaffolding around it broke its fall a bit.
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you’re right about the timbers.
@TobinL in one of the articles i read today it said that the roof and rafters of the cathedral required 52 acres of forest to provide enough wood.
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(eta: apparently, this tweet doesn’t refer to Notre Dame, but the bombing of the Cathedral of Reims.)
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Dayyyum that is a lot of trees. And probably big ones to get the right sized spars.
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