Notre Dame Burns

Source: "'The inferno cannot be stopped': Fire chiefs doubt blaze ravaging Notre Dame cathedral in Paris can be controlled, with spire and entire roof of 850-year-old building already destroyed"--Daily Mail. 

       Reports indicate that the Notre Dame cathedral in Paris has been largely destroyed by a fire. USA Today notes that "[t]he blaze comes during Holy Week, an important event for the Catholic church with Easter six days away."

       Unfortunately, the structure has been heavily damaged. The Daily Mail reported:

        French fire chiefs have warned the devastating inferno which ravaged the world-famous Notre Dame cathedral this evening evening 'cannot be stopped'. 

       An official in the French interior ministry said saving the building 'is not certain' after the spire and part of the roof collapsed earlier this evening - adding that it may not be possible to stop the blaze consuming yet more of the structure. 

        A spokesman for the cathedral said the entire wooden frame of the cathedral would likely come down, and that the vault of the edifice could be threatened too.

       ' Everything is burning, nothing will remain from the frame,' Notre Dame spokesman Andre Finot said. The 12th-century cathedral is home to incalculable works of art and is one of the world's most famous tourist attractions. 

There is hope that at least some of the treasures could be saved. The USA Today article related:

        "A special mission has been launched to try to save all works of art that can be saved," Emmanuel Grégoire, first deputy to the mayor of Paris, said on French TV. 

         A spokesman for Notre Dame, Andre Finot, told the Le Figaro newspaper that the "treasure" of the cathedral has not been touched so far. "We must see if the vault, which protects the cathedral, will be touched," he said. "The sacred objects are preserved in the sacristy, normally there is no risk of things being burned."

      The cause of the fire is not currently known. The blaze is believed to broken out in the attic of the building before spreading across the roof. The fire started roughly five or six minutes after the cathedral closed at 6:45 p.m., according to Fox News. "At around 7:53 p.m. local time, the cathedral's iconic spire fell after being consumed by flames. Less than 15 minutes later, part of the roof collapsed, Reuters reported." The cathedral was in the midst of a major restoration, and news reports suggest that there may be a link between that and the outbreak of the fire.

      But media is already warning against speculation as to the cause, with Shepard Smith of Fox News actually cutting off a French official who was speculating that the fire was the result of terrorism. This is probably because dozens of churches have been vandalized across France recently. For instance, in March, "marauders set fire to the church of Saint-Sulpice — one of Paris’ largest and most important churches — shortly after the twelve-o’clock Mass." Police concluded that fire was the result of arson. (See also this article from February 2019, about attacks earlier this year which concluded: "The earlier string of attacks on churches, in 2016, had a particularly tragic element to it, in that an elderly parish priest in Normandy, Fr. Jacques Hamel, was murdered by jihadists while offering Mass."). Coincidently, last Friday (April 12) a Muslim terrorist was sentenced to 8 years in prison over a 2016 plot to blow up Notre Dame.