31–40 of 106 posts
The rebuilding is apparently going well, but this is hiding the fact that nobody seems to be doing any inquiry about why the fire wasn't stopped in time. As far as we know, the fire was an accident (not foul play) -- but an extremely preventable one. There were works in progress on the roof of the cathedral, so people were coming and going, some of them possibly smoking, electrical devices were being used, etc. And t…
They also rely on medieval era trees to reconstruct it, as the more than 1000 oak trees painstakingly sought through entire France had to be more than 1 m wide. Okay not medieval - they are only about 200 years old. Could have made a nice title though.
Is there any indication that they're improving the structure so it will be more fire proof? Or are they simply restoring it to the configuration that already failed?
There are many solutions in old hand-tool woodworking that were elegant back then, and are still more relevant today than spinning a tool at 20k RPM. Example: when removing waste with a chisel for joinery, going cross-grain allows popping large chunks with ease, rather than route them to dust. And it's a lot of fun! Power tools do have a use for repeatability and mass-production, which may be useful in the Notre Dame…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> As far as we know, the fire was an accident “As far as we know” In the same sense of like “innocent until proven guilty” But is that the right lens to be looking through here? What is the rate of accidental church fires, let alone at somewhere that is such a treasured location as this? Then factor in, wasn’t there an ongoing spate of what were clearly church arson attacks going on at the time? Then factor in what y…
> What is the rate of accidental church fires, let alone at somewhere that is such a treasured location as this? https://apps.usfa.fema.gov/downloads/pdf/statistics/v2i7-508... 1,300/year in the US, 25% of which are arson. Clearly it's not a unique occurrence.
I’m surprised at the 25% arson rate, that is considerably higher than I would have guessed, and when combined with the strange response as OP was pointing out, and the fact that there’s not a large subset of “No cause determined,” it would seem to tip the scale pretty strongly to arson being the most probable cause in this case.
They also rely on medieval era trees to reconstruct it, as the more than 1000 oak trees painstakingly sought through entire France had to be more than 1 m wide. Okay not medieval - they are only about 200 years old. Could have made a nice title though.
That's really sad. What a shame cutting down 1k large old oaks for any building at all. It's not necessary these days. Of course they need some wood in publicly viewable areas, but this amount of not only wood but large old oak trees is excessive and concerning. Is there any indication that they're improving the structure so it will be more fire proof? Or are they simply restoring it to the configuration that already…
And after all the Notre Dame is also a very historically significant building
The rebuilding is apparently going well, but this is hiding the fact that nobody seems to be doing any inquiry about why the fire wasn't stopped in time. As far as we know, the fire was an accident (not foul play) -- but an extremely preventable one. There were works in progress on the roof of the cathedral, so people were coming and going, some of them possibly smoking, electrical devices were being used, etc. And t…
They also rely on medieval era trees to reconstruct it, as the more than 1000 oak trees painstakingly sought through entire France had to be more than 1 m wide. Okay not medieval - they are only about 200 years old. Could have made a nice title though.
That's really sad. What a shame cutting down 1k large old oaks for any building at all. It's not necessary these days. Of course they need some wood in publicly viewable areas, but this amount of not only wood but large old oak trees is excessive and concerning. Is there any indication that they're improving the structure so it will be more fire proof? Or are they simply restoring it to the configuration that already…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The whole building isn't economic or productive. They could probably make more money tearing it down and replacing it with a Starbucks. It likely has economic impact vastly larger than any Starbucks via tourism.
And what does "economic impact" means? A bunch of people burning jet fuel to get there and spend some hours looking at it? Why not working towards helping other people?
We can do both. Man does not live by bread alone. Utilitarian mediocrity is satisfied with a full stomach and keeping warm.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> As far as we know, the fire was an accident “As far as we know” In the same sense of like “innocent until proven guilty” But is that the right lens to be looking through here? What is the rate of accidental church fires, let alone at somewhere that is such a treasured location as this? Then factor in, wasn’t there an ongoing spate of what were clearly church arson attacks going on at the time? Then factor in what y…
The rate of construction accidents is what you should look at, not church fires.
And yes there was some sort of maintenance/construction going on, and if that played a role in the fire one would think at some point in the intervening years between then and now someone would have shown how it played a role.
they should have built the roof with steel & glass so it can't burn!