I lived in Paris for a time, I would say it is guaranteed some were smoking.
“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 you were describing of what seems to be an inexplicably lackadaisical approach of getting to the bottom of what occurred, giving the impression of some wanting above all else to divert attention from what one would think to be the most pertinent questions about what occurred.
Then do the calculus of, okay, if it could be shown to be a clear cut case of being accidental why wouldn’t people in a position to do so, show that? That would have minimal, if any, political ramifications. Whereas the political ramifications of other possible causes of the fire would be much higher.
It raises some questions doesn’t it?
Why aren’t people in positions of influence on this matter and in political leadership doing what their office calls on them to do?
And given what can be observed of their actions what is one to make of their intentions?
Why aren’t they safe guarding and defending the nation’s culture and heritage? Why are they leaving it open and vulnerable to attack?
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.
Workers were smoking in a space where it was explicitly not permitted, and renovation work meant there was electrical supply where "normally, no electrical is allowed in the roof space because of the extreme fire risk".
Pinpointing the exact source of ignition is a bit challenging given the fire and collapse, I suspect, but without any evidence pointing towards arson it seems like a pretty reasonable conclusion.
“Maybe it was an electrical thing or something” is far from conclusive evidence, and as OP was saying, completely incredible as a response to an event of this magnitude that attracted worldwide attention.
>pinpointing
I’m always surprised when I hear what fire forensics can figure out given the state of the evidence being worked with.
>any evidence pointing toward arson
The whole point of my original post was that all the circumstantial evidence points toward arson.
What evidence are you talking about?
Duh.
You clearly don't know how fire works and just how quickly it spreads. You also vastly underestimate how flammable the roof material was.
>all the circumstantial evidence points toward arson
Pray tell them, instead of slinging vague provocations. Better yet, if you have such clear evidence, I'm sure you're gonna go to the police or the papers with it, right?
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.
If another earthly mortal connected to a church has done something you take issue with, take it up with that person, don’t damage or destroy a community’s property, heritage, and connection to the transcendent.
people here srsly advocating/justifying criminal, potentially homicidal activity, smh
>who tf Unauthorized setting of fire to a structure is illegal, if someone is in or around the structure, it could kill the person.
“”” _People angry at churches _with good reason _get the torch “””
That reads at the very least as justifying, if not advocating. It’s certainly not saying we should strive to handle our issues in healthy and productive ways.
>1. How is
The concept of God at the baseline level is equivalent and synonymous with existence. People over time in various cultures and traditions have agglomerated various flavours onto the concept of God , but at the baseline level, God = existence.
The essence of what God is, is that the concept comes from the desire or impulse to understand or make sense of “the world” / existence.
You are a part of existence. And maybe not just “a part,” as you’ll see if you try to find the demarcation points that definitively separate you from the other parts.
You are the way in which awareness is aware of awareness. “You” are the existence that gives rise to the feeling and observation of existence.
God = existence If you hate God, you hate existence. If you hate existence, you hate yourself.
Better to love than hate, or perhaps even better to understand dichotomies.
Interesting, name three.
"This doesn't appear to be a terrorist attack" is a normal thing to say in a city and country where terrorist attacks are somewhat common.
It can have been an accident, or not. If not, well there were a lot of arsons happening at the same , maybe, so it most likely was arson. Not calling it arson is clearly political. So the arson was caused by politians, and those people in power not protecting us. Because they fail to do their job
You are aware that the moment the fire actually was an accident, the other 90% of your comment are pretty close to a conspiracy theory?
How would that even look like? The conclusion that it is most likely an accidental fire was not reached by finding something in particular, but by not finding evidence indicating a criminal motive.
> It raises some questions doesn’t it?
You are are certainly raising a lot of questions. If you think something why don't you spell it out?
> Why aren’t they safe guarding and defending the nation’s culture and heritage? Why are they leaving it open and vulnerable to attack?
Why are you talking about an attack? Who attacked the church in your opinion and how?
What in particular would you like to be done by whom?
The reason the media and government were imposing the accident narrative while the cathedral was still burning is because this could have triggered the civil war.
This is also why the report on Bataclan massacre was not released to the general public, or why MLP was prosecuted for advocating terrorism (ffs) when she published pictures of terrorism acts condemning them on Twitter. The sheeps must sleep.
The censorship is also strong here: if I recall correctly I got a HN account banned here by the censor-in-chief for voicing my opinion on the matter at the time (which as a French I think is more informed than the random poster here).
I don’t see how that is scapegoating.
CV headline: "Oversaw safety at a national landmark -- Allowed only a single billion-dollar fire"
Interesting that the responsibility stops there. What about the person that hired the obviously incompetent babysitter? They don’t appear to have sufficient judgement to be responsible for kids.
Is this a true statement? I remember reading an extremely detailed play-by-play in one of the major papers a couple years ago that did a pretty good analysis of why a confluence of factors led to the fire. I don't know what the status is of any governmental, official investigation, but I at least saw some thorough investigative reporting from news organizations.
I agree with the sibling comment that this feels a little like scapegoating. Like many disasters like this, it wasn't just one thing, but a confluence of lots of little innocuous things (e.g. new guy on the job, can't remember all the details but maybe there was a phone number change IIRC, etc.) that led to the fire. Not saying a thorough investigation isn't warranted, but pretending these types of things are completely preventable is also a mistake IMO.
Edit: This is from a US government website, and I can't see all the details but it looks like someone did do a root cause analysis, https://www.govevents.com/details/37273/risk-management-case... :
In the days following the fire, questions began to arise about what could have caused the fire and, also about the nature and extent of the fire detection and protection systems. It turns out Notre Dame had one of the most sophisticated and elaborate fire safety systems ever designed, befitting a landmark of its stature. A team of experts had spent more than six years and untold funds developing the fire protection plan. Yet, when the system was put to a real test, it failed in spectacular fashion. How this could have happened, and what lessons can be learned from this tragic event with be discussed in detail.> Is this a true statement?
Yes, I think it is, unless one can point to an inquiry, not about the fire itself, and how it started (which has been done), but about the chain of responsibilities of the people in charge of the construction site at the time of the fire.
My point is, having just one guy with no training and no experience, monitor a landmark of this importance, during major works on the roof, is incredibly careless and unprofessional and should have consequences. But apparently it doesn't.
Just like we are rebuilding with original stones and techniques, one should perhaps argue that it should also be rebuilt with its original fire resilience too - ie. Low.
At this point, a fire once every hundred years or so is part of the culture, and to stop doing that is in a way destroying the character of the cathedral.
The Christian view of fire is, of course, multi-faceted, as the Holy Spirit is a force for renewal, rebirth and purification. No parishioner wants their home burned down, of course, but at the end of the day, those are simply buildings, and they're replaceable, and every demolition is an opportunity to remake something new and wonderful.
Restoring a major historical building is always a one-off project. You follow the best practices, and the chance of a catastrophic outcome may be 10%, 1%, or 0.1%. You can't tell those scenarios apart in advance, because they all look very similar. Success is overwhelmingly likely. If a catastrophe occurs, the reason is often obvious in retrospect, and you will take that into account in the next project. But it clearly wasn't obvious in advance.
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 to monitor all this activity, there was only one guy, who had started on the job a couple of weeks earlier, who had received little to no training, and who didn't even know where the alarm was.
The point was to "save on costs", that is, in order to save maybe 1,300 euros / month over three months, the people in charge caused 1 billion euros of damage and lost irreparable historical artefacts.
There is a whole administrative department in France, whose sole responsibility is to make sure this kind of catastrophe never happens. At the very least, people should have been fired, from the site manager to the culture minister. Yet nobody's being investigated, let alone prosecuted or punished. Incredible.