From the Los Angeles Times
In the latticed shadows of the medieval masterpiece that was Notre Dame de Paris, centuries of history unspooled: two calamitous world wars, bubonic plague, revolution, the sprawling, messy intricacies of daily life. Its mighty bells clanged at momentous junctures — when Paris was liberated from the Nazis in 1944, in tribute to the victims of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
On Monday, it was the bells of Paris’ other churches that tolled — in an anguished, prayerful gesture of solidarity and support for the burning cathedral.
Onlookers wept and gasped in horror as more than 400 firefighters fought the ferocious and fast-moving blaze, which broke out about 6:45 p.m., destroying large parts of the 850-year-old Gothic monument.
Firefighters said the roof had been mostly destroyed, and at one point they feared the entire structure could collapse. Flames licked up the tall spire, which eventually buckled and collapsed in on itself, but by midnight, with the fire’s intensity finally fading, officials at the scene said the cathedral structure, including the two towers on the main facade, had been saved.
Among the sea of dismayed faces watching the flames, TV cameras found Patrick Chauvet, the rector of Notre Dame. “Catastrophe,” he murmured.
There were fears for the three famed “rose” stained-glass windows and treasures inside the cathedral, though many had been removed as the building was undergoing renovations. Firefighters rushed to save other works of art from inside the building.
Massive clouds of smoke filled the evening sky and embers from the burning building rained down on neighboring streets.
At the end of a long spring day, the early evening sky was still bright blue when flames began erupting from the grand structure’s roof, but as night fell, the scene resembled a Renaissance painting, with the cathedral’s looming towers suffused with an eerie glow and silhouetted against a roiled and darkening sky.
A spokesman for the cathedral said the wooden interior had been consumed by fire, as had the wood and lead spire, which was renovated in the 19th century after it collapsed in 1792.
Even assessing the scope of the destruction will take time: Jean-Claude Gallet, commander of the Paris fire brigade, said: “We now have to cool the structure.”
The fire is believed to have started in the ribbed roof area, some of whose heavy timbers dated to the cathedral’s early centuries. The Paris prosecutor’s office opened an investigation into “involuntary destruction by fire,” suggesting officials did not think it was a criminal act.
A visibly emotional French President Emmanuel Macron, speaking to journalists at the scene, pledged the cathedral would be rebuilt.
Praising the courage of firefighters who battled the blaze, Macron said he would launch a national “subscription” to raise funds and would call on specialists around the world to help with reconstruction.
“This cathedral we will rebuild, all together,” he vowed. “We will rebuild Notre Dame because that’s what the French expect; that’s what our history deserves.”
whole article here
www.latimes.com/world/la-na-notre-dame-cathedral-fire-20190415-story.html
