Notre Dame on fire - looks pretty serious
Discussion
Its not good when such an iconic historic building suffers something such as this. Having said that, it most certainly could have been far worse.
I have been on the roofs and ceiling/roof voids of both Lincoln and Ely cathedrals and have to say, the timberwork, both in its scale and complexity is mindblowing. Immense timbers, some still original, in both cases..Getting some of the timbers up there in the first place must have been a considerable feat in itself.
Notre-Dame is not as big as the 2 cathedrals I mention, but there would have been an awful lot of wood up there, I'm getting thoughts that the Firemen did an excellent job. This job is going to take years, sourceing the correct seasoned timber is going to be a challenge , both because of its potential size and of course, the time scale taken in seasoning. The roof spaces in Lincoln have numerous small piles of differing timber sizes, awaiting future use. I would imagine there will be specialist tradesmen from all over the world working on this, stonemasons etc, are harldy plentiful. Its good the circular windows have survived, although it seems impossible that there will be no damage , like the one at York Minster, also survived , but some damage.
I see there was 250 tons of lead on the roof, if its original, I hope they are keeping a beady eye on it. Old lead contains silver , more modern processes can seperate the lead and silver when the ore is processed , but the old ways did not. When they releaded a large roof at Lincoln, the silver taken from the old lead, paid for over half the cost of the project..
Its going to be interesting to follow the ongoing restoration, and I wish them every good fortune in it, and, if you have never been to either Ely, or Lincoln cathedrals , go, they truly are spectacular.
I have been on the roofs and ceiling/roof voids of both Lincoln and Ely cathedrals and have to say, the timberwork, both in its scale and complexity is mindblowing. Immense timbers, some still original, in both cases..Getting some of the timbers up there in the first place must have been a considerable feat in itself.
Notre-Dame is not as big as the 2 cathedrals I mention, but there would have been an awful lot of wood up there, I'm getting thoughts that the Firemen did an excellent job. This job is going to take years, sourceing the correct seasoned timber is going to be a challenge , both because of its potential size and of course, the time scale taken in seasoning. The roof spaces in Lincoln have numerous small piles of differing timber sizes, awaiting future use. I would imagine there will be specialist tradesmen from all over the world working on this, stonemasons etc, are harldy plentiful. Its good the circular windows have survived, although it seems impossible that there will be no damage , like the one at York Minster, also survived , but some damage.
I see there was 250 tons of lead on the roof, if its original, I hope they are keeping a beady eye on it. Old lead contains silver , more modern processes can seperate the lead and silver when the ore is processed , but the old ways did not. When they releaded a large roof at Lincoln, the silver taken from the old lead, paid for over half the cost of the project..
Its going to be interesting to follow the ongoing restoration, and I wish them every good fortune in it, and, if you have never been to either Ely, or Lincoln cathedrals , go, they truly are spectacular.
yellowjack said:
Trevatanus said:
TTmonkey said:
Additionally, there's the cost of moving parliament somewhere else for the duration of the works - I don't know if they've chosen somewhere else yet?
Bramshill Police College I think is setup as a designated Temporary Parliament should the need ever arise. 
Colonel D said:
You're right in saying the people speaking to a priest about it will already have faith in God, but there's still a few people that will question it, and that's usually the way it's worded out to make them feel better about such a terrible event and still hold God close in their heart. Usually followed by the "you only see one set of footprints in the sand because I carried you through those times of need" story.
I probably have that story on a card from my confirmation somewhere....
I would say the stone vaulted ceiling has saved it..
The fire has been in the outer roof structure, which not surprisingly with bone dry ancient timbers has gone up like a tinderbox.
The fire has burnt very quickly in the elevated exposed position and rapidly consumed the roof.
This shortish pulse of intense heat may have been better than a long drawn out lower temperature fire.
The burning wood from the collapsed outer watertight roof has mainly fallen onto the top of the stone vault.
The spire collapse may have punched that hole through the vault that we can see in the pictures.
Luckily they managed to douse the remnant of those burning embers raining down inside, so the interior and structure itself looks quite well preserved..
Any new roof with hidden structure is almost certainly going to be steel beams and non inflammable materials in the main.
I would hate to be the insurance company if a workman has set it on fire with his blowlamp etc etc
The fire has been in the outer roof structure, which not surprisingly with bone dry ancient timbers has gone up like a tinderbox.
The fire has burnt very quickly in the elevated exposed position and rapidly consumed the roof.
This shortish pulse of intense heat may have been better than a long drawn out lower temperature fire.
The burning wood from the collapsed outer watertight roof has mainly fallen onto the top of the stone vault.
The spire collapse may have punched that hole through the vault that we can see in the pictures.
Luckily they managed to douse the remnant of those burning embers raining down inside, so the interior and structure itself looks quite well preserved..
Any new roof with hidden structure is almost certainly going to be steel beams and non inflammable materials in the main.
I would hate to be the insurance company if a workman has set it on fire with his blowlamp etc etc
Article in the Times today states that one of the problems fighting a fire in this kind of building is difficulty of access, particularly to the roof.
Said the best thing that could happen is for the roof to collapse so that the fire can be put out on the ground.
In the York Minster fire they deliberately aimed water jets at the roof timbers to collapse them and take them down.
Seems Donald Trump's idea of water-bombing the structure was better than most here thought.
Said the best thing that could happen is for the roof to collapse so that the fire can be put out on the ground.
In the York Minster fire they deliberately aimed water jets at the roof timbers to collapse them and take them down.
Seems Donald Trump's idea of water-bombing the structure was better than most here thought.
Ayahuasca said:
Article in the Times today states that one of the problems fighting a fire in this kind of building is difficulty of access, particularly to the roof.
Said the best thing that could happen is for the roof to collapse so that the fire can be put out on the ground.
In the York Minster fire they deliberately aimed water jets at the roof timbers to collapse them and take them down.
Seems Donald Trump's idea of water-bombing the structure was better than most here thought.
Still a sSaid the best thing that could happen is for the roof to collapse so that the fire can be put out on the ground.
In the York Minster fire they deliberately aimed water jets at the roof timbers to collapse them and take them down.
Seems Donald Trump's idea of water-bombing the structure was better than most here thought.
t idea; the stone vaulting suffered enough damage simply from the falling spire and roof timbers, several tonnes of water arriving at 200 mph would have risked causing much greater devastation, perhaps even a total collapse of the masonry structure, although paradoxically that might make putting the fire out easier. As the anonymous quote about Vietnam goes, "It became necessary to destroy the town to save it.", how terribly Trumpian.Vaud said:
I'd go with Stephen Fry's view
https://bobyewchuk.wordpress.com/2015/03/12/stephe...
“I’d say, bone cancer in children? What’s that about?"
“Yes, the world is very splendid, but it also has in it, insects whose whole life cycle is to burrow into the eyes of children and make them blind. That eats outwards from the eyes. Why? Why did you do that to us? You could easily have made a creation in which that didn’t exist. It is simply not acceptable. It’s not just about not believing that there is a God, but on the assumption that there is one, what kind of God is it? It’s perfectly apparent that He is monstrous; utterly monstrous, and deserves no respect whatsoever."
I am off topic, sorry.
Always liked Mr Fry and I agree with a lot of what he says. Especially this. https://bobyewchuk.wordpress.com/2015/03/12/stephe...
“I’d say, bone cancer in children? What’s that about?"
“Yes, the world is very splendid, but it also has in it, insects whose whole life cycle is to burrow into the eyes of children and make them blind. That eats outwards from the eyes. Why? Why did you do that to us? You could easily have made a creation in which that didn’t exist. It is simply not acceptable. It’s not just about not believing that there is a God, but on the assumption that there is one, what kind of God is it? It’s perfectly apparent that He is monstrous; utterly monstrous, and deserves no respect whatsoever."
I am off topic, sorry.
Religion is an awful, pernicious blot on Humanity's record. Don't get me wrong, I completely understand how it served it's purpose in previous times of misunderstanding and a lack of science and empirical observation but it is long, long past its use-by date. Even then, despite it's benefit in more unenlightened times I do not accept that, on balance, it has been a net benefit to humanity.
Having said that, some of the buildings that we have, and have had, constructed in the name of religion have been utterly spectacular. I doubt it's the case that we would not have had similar buildings had religion not have existed. We would simply have built them for different reasons. Even the great religious buildings like this one were not constructed solely for religious reasons. They were symbols of state and community power in large part.
Gad-Westy said:
KTF said:
Am not sure why this is even worthy of a mention? https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-47947745
People love a bandwagon I guess...
I just don't get this. The pic of the girl and her dad barely even features Notre Dame. People love a bandwagon I guess...
"This is going to become THAT photo," Michelle Bhasin commented.
First I heard if this was when I was doing some some work on my laptop and the girlfriend shoved her phone in my face to show me the video of flames shooting up the spire; f
k, I thought, "we're going to have a decade or more of American attention seekers and news anchors spouting their awful, annoyingly grating pronunciation of Notre Dame while they rebuild this thing!". Think I'll go live in a cave. Gassing Station | News, Politics & Economics | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff