July 11, 2024 – 2:53 PM
According to Nicolas Meyer-Rossignol, mayor of Rouen, a fire broke out on Thursday afternoon in the tower of Rouen Cathedral, which is undergoing renovation. Firefighters were notified of the fire at noon by workers at the cathedral, and were able to contain and extinguish the flames in about two hours.
to France BFM TV report The building was evacuated and the area around the cathedral was also closed, affecting several tram lines. Firefighters said earlier that the fire was unlikely to spread further, as only the wooden scaffolding floors could catch fire. That's why they worked to prevent the fire from reaching them. An investigation into the cathedral spire fire has already begun.
They are currently investigating whether the artworks and furniture in the cathedral could be damaged by the firefighting, and whether it is justified to move them to a safe location. The Archbishop of Rouen said on Thursday afternoon that the cathedral could reopen as early as tomorrow.
According to BFM News, the cathedral was not damaged in the fire.
Incidentally, the damage here would certainly be much less than that at Notre-Dame Cathedral, which also caught fire during renovation work in the spring of 2019. The collapsed siege tower was built in 1860 to designs by Eugène Viollet-le-Duc, after the building originally built in 1250 was demolished between 1786 and 1792.
