Community Chat

[bikerbabe]

... Relics include crown of thorns and quite a few saints.

[I am still oxox]

It looks as if the Cathedral is a loss, lets hope they can save some of the art work

[ValuSkr]

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@Cakers3 wrote:

I see streams of water being put on the fire. 

Apparently the use of a heavy stream of water can cause more damage from what is being reported.

It seems to be a darn if you do and darn if you don't situation.

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Yes, I think "flying water tankers," as some suggested, would cause as much damage as the fire itself. 

[bridal_diva]

This is heartbreaking- such a beautiful and holy place! Makes me so sad to see this loss.

[Greeneyedlady21]

Flying water tankers?

[Greeneyedlady21]

It's just awful to see that iconic round window and all you can see behind it is fire.

They can't fight it from.the inside because of the killing heat inside, they said it's like a cauldron.

[golding76]

All h___ has been let loose on the world.  Crushingly sad news. 

[Tyak]

Quite ironic, Easter week. 

[gardenman]

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@lovesrecess wrote:

No way what is being burned to the ground can ever be restored using the craftsmanship that created it in the first place. I don’t understand why it took two hours to get water on it. This doesn’t seem to be a “small fire in the attic from an ongoing renovation project”. Has burned too fast and spread too much for that. There is more to this than we may ever know. Why was a building this priceless and special not equipped with a sprinkler system?

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The craftsmanship can be recreated, but the problem is finding replacement timbers of suitable size and strength. Large, old forests are largely gone these days. The timbers used in structures like cathedrals are massive and were hard to source eight hundred years ago. They're nearly impossible to source these days. You need massive trees to create massive beams. You're pretty much going to have to find an alternative way of providing the structural support the beams provided. Steel is the easy answer, but the weight of the steel might be more than the existing stone walls can support. If you use steel beams you can sheathe them with wood to hide the beams, but that adds even more weight. Whoever insured the remodeling work is likely committing suicide right about now. You're talking about hundreds of millions of dollars gone up in smoke. As to sprinklers, they're largely designed to put out fires below them, not a roof fire. Pretty much everything that's burning would have been above the sprinklers.

[bridal_diva]

And all those beautiful stained glass windows will probably melt into oblivion or shatter from the heat. So sad.