> “You have a system that is known for its ability to detect very small quantities of smoke,” Mr. Corbett said. “Yet the whole outcome of it is this clumsy human response. You can spend a lot to detect a fire, but it all goes down the drain when you don’t move on it.”<p>It seems to me that the biggest issue with the fire system was the lack of a graphical display of the alarm... with all the security cameras and screens likely to already be in place, why not add one with maps of the cathedral, showing up in red when an alarm triggers? The need to understand shortcodes it waiting for disaster...
The article understates the risk the team that went to the north tower undertook. It mentions that they might not have an escape path, but that really doesn't communicate how exposed they were.<p>It's not uncommon for a fire crew to advance into an exposed position to make an attack or search for victims. As was the case here, there is usually a hoseline or two set up in a defensive position, covering their escape path. The difference is, this is usually done in a comparatively small space (i.e. a crew holding the staircase of a house while a second crew searches the upstairs). If the defensive position starts to look at risk, the exposed crew can make it back within a minute or two.<p>The crew in the northern tower of Notre-Dame would have taken far longer than that to make it back through, and it's very likely that if the defensive position had been lost, it wouldn't have been recognized until it was too late, trapping the crew in the tower.
Interesting that during the fire, the world was piling on the fire fighting efforts as being insufficient. As the true picture started coming out over the next few days and now with this article, it's clear that the fire fighters had a plan and executed it well, likely saving the structure.
The part interesting for us:<p>“The fire warning system at Notre-Dame took dozens of experts six years to put together, and in the end involved thousands of pages of diagrams, maps, spreadsheets and contracts, according to archival documents found in a suburban Paris library by The Times.<p>The result was a system so arcane that <i>when it was called upon to do the one thing that mattered — warn “fire!” and say where — it produced instead a nearly indecipherable message.</i>”<p>The message (assembled):<p>“Attic Nave Sacristy.” “ZDA-110-3-15-1” “aspirating framework”
Ok so the UI or procedures sucked but what's really aggravating as a tax payer, at least to me, is the lack of foresight and proper funding where it matters. Though to be honest it's not different from most work environments...<p>Fire is not something new for historical monuments.<p>I heard on the radio right after the collapse an architect saying at least half of fires starting on historical monuments happen during renovations. And quickly searching shows an insurance company saying it could be close to 3/4 of them (<a href="https://www.cahiers-techniques-batiment.fr/article/notre-dame-les-travaux-de-renovation-sont-la-cause-de-trois-quart-des-incendies-des-batiments-historiques-claude-delahaye-directeur-de-la-construction-chez-verspieren.40370" rel="nofollow">https://www.cahiers-techniques-batiment.fr/article/notre-dam...</a>).<p>Sure that wouldn't have fixed everything but now instead of adding a couple of dozens or hundred millions to fund the fire warning system, we're now most likely looking at a cost of multiple billions...
Amazing read, goes to show that fighting fire is not just about pointing a hose to the fire. There's a lot of strategic decision that has to be made. When you have multiple fire, which one do you point the hose at, where you position yourself, in what order do you fight them? You can't just look at the fire, but everything around it. Timing matters, I suppose SRE's can relate. But I believe developers can also learn from this by doing a lot of introspection.
I saw a TV report today and they still don't allow people under the part of the roof that collapsed.<p>Currently they are clearing the rubbles there using remote-controlled robots.
I didn’t see any mention of basic testing happening.<p>I’d hope that they were doing constant readiness drills.<p>Every couple of weeks they should have sent someone up to trigger a sensor and see how long it takes for someone to show up.
I don’t know what they meant by closer than people knew. I heard the news, saw the pictures, and went to bed assuming it would be completely gone by the morning.
Can I just take a moment to praise the article's presentation?<p>This comes up every time a NYTimes interactive comes out but <i>wow</i>, the narrative flow on this one really is incredible. The animations smoothly transitioning to full text, the collage of socal media posts... It feels much more like watching a documentary than reading an article.<p>I hope this catches on, it's what I've been promised with this whole hypermedia shebang!
>Paris has endured so much in recent years, from terrorist attacks to the recent violent demonstrations by Yellow Vest protesters.<p>Seriously? Putting the terrorist attacks in the same context as the Yellow Vest protests? One is an attack on civilians by extremist foreign groups, the other is those citizens protesting against a government decision that hurts them, which is a constitutional right in both France and the US... And this right to protest is what arguably made France a republic in the first place and led many other countries to follow on its steps.
And labeling the protest as violent is dishonest at best, the police were violent and started throwing tear gas grenades at people, which made many protesters lose a hand or an eye (only the ones I saw, I'm sure there are many others who weren't recorded and put on Youtube).