Where were you on April 15, 2019 at 7:00 p.m.? The fire at Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris belongs to the realm of unforgettable memories. Whether we learned about it from a notification on our phone, from the television, or from a call from a lover of historic stones, we all remember where we were that day. Just close your eyes to see again these huge flames devouring this religious and architectural masterpiece for hours.
Four years after the tragedy, when the cathedral is due to reopen in 2024, Le Point returns to these photos which moved the whole world.
This Monday, April 15, 2019, Parisians are taking advantage of a beautiful spring day to stroll along the banks of the Seine. Suddenly, wisps of smoke escape from the cathedral. All eyes turn to the beautiful lady, who has been under construction for several months.
After a first uncertified fire alarm, a new one went off about twenty minutes later, leading to the evacuation of the faithful who were attending mass. Security guards climb into the attic of Notre-Dame where sleeps a framework of thousands of century-old oaks. They then discover with amazement that flames seize the famous “forest”.
The Poissy fire station was the first to arrive on the scene, at 6:51 p.m. The alert was launched: “Notre-Dame de Paris is on fire. General Jean-Claude Gallet, head of the Paris Fire Brigade (BSPP), took command of the operation. Its only objective: to save this building which has already resisted the French Revolution, the two world wars and buried many heads of state.
On the outskirts of the cathedral, onlookers gather, helpless before the terrible spectacle. Time seems to stand still. Hundreds of Catholics then kneel. They chain the rosaries to ask the Virgin to save her House.
Minutes pass but the fire spreads and the threat grows. The flames and smoke are now visible several hundred meters away.
Powerful and fast, the fire took hold of the roof and the spire around 7 p.m. Fanned by an east wind, it devours the beams and melts the 210 tons of lead from the roof.
Hundreds of firefighters from all over Île-de-France then arrived as reinforcements, equipped with lifting arms 46 meters high. The first arrives on the scene at 7:30 p.m., the second will not arrive until thirty minutes later.
A few minutes before the churches of France strike 8 p.m., the spire of Viollet-le-Duc gives way under the weight of the flames.
Despite the deployment of firefighters and their powerful water hoses, concern spreads to the special command center where firefighters, soldiers, priests and political figures watch over the incandescent old lady.
Faced with flames that nothing seems to be able to stop, it is necessary to act quickly to save the towers and the facade now threatened. All attention is then turned to the north belfry, where the eight bells each weighing between 780 kilos and 4 tons are housed. If he were to bend under the power of the blaze, he could bring down the whole cathedral in his fall.
A last-ditch operation was launched, authorized at the last minute by the President of the Republic, Emmanuel Macron, who arrived on the spot around 8 p.m.
Shortly before 10 p.m., when night fell on the capital, only the brazier of the cathedral continued to shine.
It was not until 10:50 p.m. that General Jean-Claude Gallet announced that the towers had been saved thanks to the heroic operation of the firefighters in the north tower. A total of 600 firefighters were mobilized and 18 fire hoses deployed. Thanks to the heroes of the fire, “the structure of Notre-Dame is saved and preserved as a whole”, declared, around 4 am, General Jean-Claude Gallet.
It was not until the next day, April 16, at 9:50 a.m., that the firefighters announced that the fire was extinguished after more than fifteen hours of fierce struggle to save the beautiful Parisian lady.
Read also our file on Notre-Dame de Paris