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Professional scaffold builder / journeyman carpenter / volunteer firefighter / US Army-US Air Force parachute rigger here, chiming in-

one worker can be seen with outstretched arms, likely working on the framing overhead that might support a visqueen (plastic) covering for weatherization.

That there are workers working on the scaffolding, is to be expected. I wouldn’t draw much of a conclusion from this action. There are bound to be many other workers present throughout the project, much closer to the source of the fire.

The wood framing has had centuries to cure / dry out, and the level of heat in the attic portions in the summer would be like an oven, adding to the dangerous nature of the fire.

A careless worker could have been smoking a cigarette and dropped hot ash onto some kind of material that flash ignited.

Hot work involving grinding or cutting might have taken place and precautions or prohibitions were simply not in place as required.

Some projects prohibit hot work of any kind due to the extreme dangers.

A short in existing wiring causing a spark leading to the fire may have been caused by an inadvertent disturbance during the upgrade.

Spark arresting techniques may not have been in place or even part of the protocol.

Example- when working on F-4 and F-16 fighter jets, precautions are taken to avoid sparks while working on the flight line. All metal jewelry, rings, wrist watches, etc. are prohibited from being worn when working on or near the aircraft, and the work stairs or platforms have brass handrails in order to diminish the production of sparks due to arcing.

Situational awareness:

While working on a nuclear powerplant refueling cycle, all radiation workers were required to watch a film about a small piece of wire that was dropped accidentally into the water cooling system of an operational reactor. Fretting (vibrations) of the wire against a fuel bundle caused a leak of radiation into the atmosphere, causing the plant to shut down unexpectantly, resulting in the loss of income and costing 80 million dollars to remedy.

While building an overhead scaffold, I dropped a piece of wire into the fuel transfer pool of the nuclear powerplant. I reported it as instructed, and a company out of South Carolina, was hired to retrieve the wire, charging $10,000 for a partial day’s work.

The plant management was grateful for my honesty (integrity) and wanted to make an example out of it by giving me a $25 Sears gift card, in front of my peers at a group safety meeting.

An after-action report determined that I was at fault for losing positive control of the wire.

The point I am making is that (having been educated on the big picture via the training film) it was critical in me reporting my mistake and that I could do so without fear of retribution or punishment.

Who knows how aware the cathedral workers were, on the prevention of fire and how dangerous the fuel source was, that surrounded them in the form of the superstructure?

I’m not even commenting on an intentional act, which- if it is determined to have taken place, was one- a resounding success, and two- easily accomplished in any of a number of ways, due to the powder keg (by magnitudes) that was unstoppable once lit.

I was thinking of hot-work too. I worked at a site and had to sit in on the safety meeting - even though I wasn’t involved in their actual construction work. If a person was welding or cutting, it was mandatory that they have a helper whose ONLY job was to watch the sparks for fires. (No - they couldn’t help hold the material or anything, just WATCH.) I thought it was some stupid union rule, but the safety guy talking wasn’t union.

The safety guy told of stories where a spark would get under insulation, and start burning 5 hours later. Come back to the project site the following morning with the entire building burned to the ground.

That was interesting to learn about.