Switch the flipping electric bar fire off eh. It’s not rocket science
Im sure theyll be really grateful for this bit of insightful advice.
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But it’s cold and windy up in the rafters!
It is very sad to see such historic buildings destroyed by fire, but it is just a building. Hopefully nobody was killed or injured. The horror of Grenfell Tower puts this in perspective.
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Not any more!
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Same reasons you get them in shipbuilding. In my industry we spend a lot of money understanding the risks, mitigating , preventing and managing the consequence if a fire occurs.
Hot work systems of work, firewatch, fixed firefighting systems, on site fire appliances, regular fire fighting drills, strict non smoking policy, control of all work, regular workforce training etc etc…As a result, never had a major fire in construction or repair in my lifetime.
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Glasgow Art College was a recent one. According to the Times the builders were using rags soaked in linseed oil. When such rags are exposed to oxygen they generate heat.
Not just a building, at all. A building of significant importance and historical interest, a nearly 900 year old, priceless, irreplaceable building, yes. In no way just a building.
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I can’t recall having been inside Notre Dame (may have just looked inside the door) but most of these medieval cathedrals have the most incredible carved wooden screens & stalls within them and I can’t imagine much of that will have survived. All of the stained glass gone too. It does sound as if the building was in a bit of a state and there’s starting to be some criticism of the French government for not funding the repairs fully enough.
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I didn’t think the Government owned the building.
The Catholic Church has literally billions of dollars, when are they going to step in?
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I remember visiting many years ago, the choir were singing and it was an incredible sound.
Very sad indeed 
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It is just a building. You can attach whatever meaning you want to it.
My experience fires are rare but they do still happen. Of the 100 odd GE factories in UK two of the business sites that I worked for as H&S Manager had major fires (fortunately both just after I had left)- One inside a paint shop extraction system totalled a large factory - The paint shop being in the centre of the building and having very long extraction ducting was a known additional risk factor.
The second was a nitric acid spill the ignited which fortunately only destroyed one building that had offices and acid etching facilities - Still a pain. No one was injured in either fire.
No matter how good a replica is, it is not the original. The original provides a real physical connection to the past and reminds us that we can create things which will have an impact in the future, in fact more of an impact the older they become. The French created an inch-perfect copy of the prehistoric caves with paintings at Lascaux. I’ve been down there. It’s very impressive indeed. But it’s not the real thing. You’re not looking at paint applied by people working by torchlight, who knew the animals they depicted, whose beliefs about their environment were much more raw than ours. Originals matter and it’s heartbreaking when they’re lost.
VB
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Still just a building.
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Well I guess we’re just going to have to disagree about that.
VB
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Yes, but we’re talking Paris, France here - a country and city where smoking is endemic and a blind eye is turned to “no smoking” laws.
I remember being up in one of the towers many years ago and being surprised that the bell was hanging from a big wooden frame. It was explained that if the bell was fixed to the fabric of the building it would have fallen apart by now.
It is lucky those wooden structures survived the fire or the bells would have come crashing down and depending on the heat at the seat of the fire could have suffered melt damage.
Surely if you attach meaning to it, it is no longer ‘just’ a building 
That’s usually the way bells are hung, I believe. If they’re at all large and are full-circle rung then they’re perfectly capable of over-stressing the masonry in bell towers.
VB