A Case for Maigret: What Was the Origin of the Notre-Dame de Paris Fire?

Catholic World Report ^ | 9/21/19 | Chilton Williamson, Jr.

[MD Expat in PA]

Have any Islamist groups claimed responsibility? Perhaps there were but I’ve not heard of any. Terrorists like to advertise their handy work, they even sometimes claim responsibility for that which they didn’t do, even fight among themselves over which terrorist group can claim credit.

Seriously, not every fire or explosion is caused by Muslim extremists and when it is terrorism, they like to make it known. That’s not to say that it couldn’t have been or that they didn’t celebrate the destruction but the likely cause is something else.

Notre Dame Cathedral was undergoing major renovations, some of which were to repair the very shoddy attempts at renovation in the 19th century. Many architects and historians had been concerned for years about the sad state of the building and of the poor attempts at stemming the decay.

Old buildings are susceptible to fires during renovations, especially where electrical work is being done or by careless workers - in April, a spokesman for scaffolding company Le Bras Freres which had been involved in restoration work at Notre Dame admitted that workers had smoked on the site from time to time. The company later tried to retract that statement for obvious reasons.

While it may seem a cover up to say it was not arson, absent any evidence that it was, it would be equally irresponsible to say it without a doubt that it was arson. The difficult part of determining a definitive cause is that the fire itself often destroys evidence of its cause.

Here where I live in York PA, in March 2018 there was a fire at a 150-year-old former organ and piano factory and later warehouse that was being converted into upscale apartments. Two firefighters were killed in a partial collapse while putting out hotspots the morning after the fire. While the cause is still undetermined, it is believed the cause of the fire was faulty electrical wires, either old wires still “hot” or new wiring or even from contractor equipment. The fire quickly got out of control consuming the entire building because while there was a sprinkler system, it was not operational during the renovations and the 150-year-old building still had many of its original wood flooring, some of which had dry rotted and collapsed in spots during the renovation work and had most of its original wood beams throughout.

https://fox43.com/2018/03/30/atf-officials-cause-

And as of June of this year, the investigation into the Notre Dame fire is on-going.

https://www.scmp.com/news/world/europe/article/3016234/devastating-notre-dame-cathedral-fire-could-have-been-started

In 1984 a fire nearly destroyed the York Minster Cathedral. The fire was believed to have been caused by lightning striking a metal electrical box inside the roof.

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-york-north-yorkshire-28112373

Like Notre Dame, York Minster’s vaulted ceiling was constructed with wood timbers, many of them original at the time of the fire. Very old wood, a vaulted ceiling acting like a chimney, electric wires sparking - a recipe for disaster.

Notre Dame and York Minster were not the first or only great cathedrals to have suffered devastating fires. Some were destroyed by city wide fires such as the original St Paul’s Cathedral, London destroyed in the 1666 Great Fire of London (although it had been damaged by fire twice earlier), some by lightning strikes, one was known to have been caused by candles lit for its consecration, some by bombings during WWI or WWII and some by accidents of undetermined cause.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fires_at_major_places_of_worship