When the smoke around the Notre Dame is gone …

The roof structure was 140 m long, 13 m wide and 10 m high and consisted of hundreds of oak beams. For the construction in the 12th and 13th century, 1,300 three to four hundred year old oaks were chopped down. So it was no coincidence that the roof was nicknamed "the forest".  While the rubble was still smoking, the French president expressed the ambition to rebuild Notre Dame within 5 years. This reconstruction will undoubtedly be a very interesting case. There are already serious differences of opinion between historians, heritage conservationists, restorers, architects, artists and environmentalists. But also as a maintenance professional, there are some interesting comments to be made about the Notre Dame fire.

Maintenance as the cause of the fire?

Let's start with the circumstances in which the fire started. At the moment the exact cause is still unclear, but it’s a fact that since a few weeks important maintenance and restoration works were carried out on the spire.  The first flames were observed in the large scaffolding and the tower where works took place earlier that day. It is therefore logical that those maintenance works were immediately identified as the possible cause of the disaster. That same night, the restoration technicians were questioned by the examining magistrate.  A fire technical examination of the rubble should further determine whether any faults occurred during the work or whether the fire was caused by a short circuit or other unforeseeable circumstances. However, given the extensive damage, it is likely that we will never know the exact cause.

Difficult to understand

That's not necessary. As far as I'm concerned, the real cause of the fire is obvious: the undervaluation of maintenance by our society.  After all, for years serious damage had been established to the 856-year-old building. In order to carry out the much-needed repairs, 60 million euros was needed. The French State was prepared to give 2 million euros a year for a period of 10 years, provided that the same amount was financed from private funds. The 'Fondation Avenir du Patrimoine à Paris' went to work in 2014 in good spirits and even went as far as the US in search of the necessary funds. 

Apparently it wasn't that easy to find donations. Five years later the counter stood at only 3 million euros donated by 200 benefactors and the first works could be started.  The contrast could not be greater with the billion euros donated within a month of the fire by many companies and 300,000 individuals. I find it very difficult to see that our society is prepared to provide massive funds to raise ruins from the ashes, but is not prepared at all to prevent its cultural-historical assets from collapsing into ruins for only a fraction of the cost.  How many more fires are we going to need to make common sense prevail?

Wim Vancauwenberghe

Maintenance Evangelist and director of BEMAS