As flames erupted in the attic of Paris’s Notre Dame Cathedral on Monday, some 400 firefighters rushed to save one of Europe’s great historical and architectural symbols. The blaze, the cause of which remains unknown, raged for 12 hours, toppling Notre Dame’s 13th Century centre spire in the process. Source: Fortune
The Paris Police Force deemed it extinguished on Tuesday morning, noting that the stone structure of the cathedral had been saved. Even though “the worst has been avoided,” as President Emmanuel Macron said Monday night, early reports of the damage are devastating.
They indicate that the cathedral’s roof and the frame that supports it are gone. That will pose a particular challenge to efforts to rebuild the 856-year-old church, which Macron has vowed to do.
The wood for the soaring cathedral was first felled around 1160 to 1170, with some of it coming from trees thought to be 300 to 400 years old at the time they were chopped. That puts the oldest timber in the cathedral at nearly 1300 years old. Replacing those beams with comparable oak is simply not an option, said Bertrand de Feydeau, vice president of the preservation group Fondation du Patrimoine.
Trees that supplied the roof’s frame came from primary forests—forests that are largely untouched by human activity, he said.
Only 4% of Europe’s remaining woodland is primary forest with none larger than 500 square kilometres outside of Russia or Northern Europe. While forest covers nearly a third of mainland France, just 0.01% of it is untouched, containing trees around 200 to 400 years old, said Dr. Francesco Maria Sabatini, a lead author on the study and a researcher at the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research.
Ultimately, there is simply no way to replace wood that predates the founding of even medieval France from ancient forests or otherwise.
“Extracting timber from the last primary remnants means losing also these, and this loss won’t cover up the tragedy of losing Notre Dame,” said Ms Sabatini.
Notre Dame will have to rely on new technologies to rebuild.
