Fires are common in buildings under construction and renovation, and present particular difficulties to firefighters.
During construction, buildings often do not have elements that would protect them from fire, such as walls and sprinkler systems. [1] Poor water supplies and the accumulation of flammable materials also present risks. [2] Works often require heat or even open flame, and these can set off fires that smoulder for hours before being noticed. For this reason, work sites may need 24-hour fire watches. [3]
Builder's risk insurance may cover damage from such fires.
Fire | Date | Probable cause | Refs |
---|---|---|---|
SS Normandie | 1942 | sparks from a welding torch, during conversion to troopship | |
Saint Boniface Cathedral | 1968 | started in roof by worker's cigarette | [4] |
Nantes Cathedral | 1972 | started in roof by worker with blowtorch | [5] |
Montreal Biosphere | 1976 | started by worker with welding torch | [6] |
Hotel Margaret, Brooklyn | 1980 | possibly caused by heater used by workers | [7] |
MS Bergensfjord | 1980 | fire broke out during reconstruction work, cause unknown | [8] |
Notre Dame de Lourdes, Fall River, Massachusetts | 1982 | started by worker with torch during restoration work | [9] |
Uppark, Sussex | 1989 | roof re-leading | [10] |
Windsor Castle | 1992 | spotlight on curtains | [3] |
Limoges-Bénédictins station | 1998 | thermal conduction to timbers from hot working of copper roofing during restoration | [11] |
Central Synagogue, Manhattan | 1998 | blowtorch used to install air conditioning on roof | [12] |
University of Kentucky Main Building | 2001 | thought to be welding torch used to repair guttering | [13] [14] |
St. Catherine's Church, Gdańsk | 2006 | started in roof, short circuit of a tinkered cable | [15] |
Trinity Cathedral, Saint Petersburg | 2006 | originated in exterior scaffolding | [16] [17] |
Cutty Sark | 2007 | industrial vacuum cleaner, AWOL firewatchers | [18] [19] |
Universal Studios Hollywood | 2008 | started when worker used blowtorch to heat asphalt shingles | [20] |
Heydar Aliyev Center | 2012 | negligent use of welding equipment | [21] |
Hôtel Lambert, Paris | 2013 | under investigation, started in roof | [22] [23] |
Basilica of St. Donatian and St. Rogatian, Nantes | 2015 | oxy-fuel torch used to repair lead gutter[ citation needed ] | [5] |
Battersea Arts Centre, London | 2015 | under investigation, started in roof | [24] [25] |
Mackintosh Building, Glasgow School of Art (2018) | 2018 | 2022 investigation report could not identify cause | [26] |
Notre-Dame de Paris | 2019 | under investigation; as of 2020 [update] , thought to be either a cigarette or a short circuit in the temporary wiring for the reconstruction works | [3] [27] |
Børsen | 2024 | under investigation | [28] |
Notre-Dame de Paris, referred to simply as Notre-Dame, is a medieval Catholic cathedral on the Île de la Cité, in the 4th arrondissement of Paris, France. The cathedral, dedicated to the Virgin Mary, is considered one of the finest examples of French Gothic architecture. Several attributes set it apart from the earlier Romanesque style, particularly its pioneering use of the rib vault and flying buttress, its enormous and colourful rose windows, and the naturalism and abundance of its sculptural decoration. Notre-Dame also stands out for its three pipe organs and its immense church bells.
The Catacombs of Paris are underground ossuaries in Paris, France, which hold the remains of more than six million people. Built to consolidate Paris's ancient stone quarries, they extend south from the Barrière d'Enfer former city gate; the ossuary was created as part of the effort to eliminate the effects of the city's overflowing cemeteries. Preparation work began shortly after a 1774 series of basement wall collapses around the Holy Innocents' Cemetery added a sense of urgency to the cemetery-eliminating measure, and from 1786, nightly processions of covered wagons transferred remains from most of Paris's cemeteries to a mine shaft opened near the Rue de la Tombe-Issoire.
Cutty Sark is a British clipper ship. Built on the River Leven, Dumbarton, Scotland in 1869 for the Jock Willis Shipping Line, she was one of the last tea clippers to be built and one of the fastest, at the end of a long period of design development for this type of vessel, which ended as steamships took over their routes. She was named after the short shirt of the fictional witch in Robert Burns' poem Tam o' Shanter, first published in 1791.
Île de la Cité is an island in the river Seine in the center of Paris. In the 4th century, it was the site of the fortress of the Roman governor. In 508, Clovis I, the first King of the Franks, established his palace on the island. In the 12th century, it became an important religious center, the home of Notre-Dame cathedral, and the royal chapel of Sainte-Chapelle, as well as the city's first hospital, the Hôtel-Dieu. It is also the site of the city's oldest surviving bridge, the Pont Neuf.
Cutty Sarkfor Maritime Greenwich is a light metro station on the Docklands Light Railway (DLR) Bank-Lewisham Line in Greenwich, south-east London, so named for its proximity to the Cutty Sark in the Maritime Greenwich district. It is the most central of the Greenwich DLR stations, being situated in Greenwich town centre.
The Hôtel Lambert is an hôtel particulier, a grand mansion townhouse, on the Quai Anjou on the eastern tip of the Île Saint-Louis, in the 4th arrondissement of Paris. In the 19th century, the name Hôtel Lambert also came to designate a political faction of Polish exiles associated with Prince Adam Jerzy Czartoryski, who had purchased the Hôtel Lambert.
The Battersea Arts Centre ("BAC") is a performance space specialising in theatre productions. Located near Clapham Junction railway station in Battersea, in the London Borough of Wandsworth, it was formerly Battersea Town Hall. It is a Grade II* listed building.
St. Edward's Hall is one of the 32 Residence Halls on the campus of the University of Notre Dame and one of sixteen male dormitories. Saint Edward's Hall is located directly east of the Main Administration Building and is directly west of Zahm Hall and houses 162 undergraduate students. The dorm community and culture are not as old as Sorin College (1888) as it was established as an undergraduate residence hall 30 years later. However the building itself was built in 1882 to house the minims, Notre Dame's boarding school program. When such program was discontinued in 1929, the building was converted to an undergraduate residence hall, which it has been ever since. Together with other historical structures of the university, it is on the National Register of Historic Places. The coat of arms is the Cross of Saint Edward the Confessor on a green background.
The University of Notre Dame School of Architecture was the first Catholic university in America to offer a degree in architecture, beginning in 1898. The School offers undergraduate and post-graduate architecture programs.
Tourism in Paris is a major income source. Paris received 12.6 million visitors in 2020, measured by hotel stays, a drop of 73 percent from 2019, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The number of foreign visitors declined by 80.7 percent. Museums re-opened in 2021, with limitations on the number of visitors at a time and a requirement that visitors wear masks.
University of Notre Dame's Main Administration Building houses various administrative offices, including the office of the President. Atop of the building stands the Golden Dome, the most recognizable landmark of the university. Three buildings were built at the site; the first was built in 1843 and replaced with a larger one in 1865, which burned down in 1879, after which the third and current building was erected. The building hosts the administrative offices of the university, as well as classrooms, art collections, and exhibition spaces. The building is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Notre Dame de Lourdes, known from 2012 to 2018 as St. Bernadette Parish, is a former Roman Catholic parish in Fall River, Massachusetts. A part of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Fall River, the parish was established in 1874 to serve the growing French-Canadian population located in the city's Flint Village section. Since its founding, the parish has occupied three different church buildings; a wooden structure (1874–1893), a spectacular granite church (1906–1982) and the current modern church (1986-2018). The parish complex over time has also consisted of other multiple buildings, including St. Joseph's Orphanage, The Jesus Marie Convent, a school, the church rectory, the Brothers' residence, and the former Msgr. Prevost High School. The parish also includes Notre Dame Cemetery, located in the city's south end.
The Parvis Notre-Dame – Place Jean-Paul II is a city square in Paris, France. Located in the city's 4th arrondissement on the eastern half of the Île de la Cité, the square is bordered by the Hôtel-Dieu hospital to the north, the cathedral of Notre-Dame to the east, the Seine River to the south, and the Prefecture of Police headquarters to the west. The square contains France's point zéro marker, making it the very center of Paris for the purpose of measuring travel distance. Other points of interest include the Archaeological Crypt of the Île de la Cité and Charlemagne et ses Leudes, an equestrian statue of Charlemagne.
The Grotto of Our Lady of Lourdes is located at the University of Notre Dame in Notre Dame, Indiana, United States, and is a reproduction of the Grotto of Our Lady of Lourdes in Lourdes, France. The current Grotto was built in 1896, replacing a wooden grotto built on August 22, 1878. An artificial rock cave, the Grotto is used by its visitors as a sacred space for prayer, meditation, and outdoor Mass.
The campus of the University of Notre Dame is located in Notre Dame, Indiana, and spans 1,250 acres comprising around 170 buildings. The campus is consistently ranked and admired as one of the most beautiful university campuses in the United States and around the world, particularly noted for the Golden Dome, the Basilica and its stained glass windows, the quads and the greenery, the Grotto, Touchdown Jesus, its collegiate gothic architecture, and its statues and museums. Notre Dame is a major tourist attraction in northern Indiana; in the 2015–2016 academic year, more than 1.8 million visitors, almost half of whom were from outside of St. Joseph County, visited the campus.
On 15 April 2019, just before 18:20 CEST, a structural fire broke out in the roof space of Notre-Dame de Paris, a medieval Catholic cathedral in Paris, France. By the time the fire was extinguished, the cathedral's wooden spire (flèche) had collapsed, most of the wooden roof had been destroyed, and the cathedral's upper walls were severely damaged. Extensive damage to the interior was prevented by the vaulted stone ceiling, which largely contained the burning roof as it collapsed. Many works of art and religious relics were moved to safety, but others suffered smoke damage, and some of the exterior art was damaged or destroyed. The cathedral's altar, two pipe organs, and three 13th-century rose windows suffered little or no damage. Three emergency workers were injured. The fire contaminated the site and nearby areas of Paris with toxic dust and lead. Notre-Dame did not hold a Christmas Mass in 2019, for the first time since 1803. Investigators in 2020 believed the fire to have been "started by either a cigarette or a short circuit in the electrical system".
Andrew J. Tallon was a Belgian art historian. He used lasers to create a precise model of Notre-Dame de Paris, among other buildings.
The Spire of Notre-Dame de Paris is located above the cross-section of the cathedral's Transept. Notre-Dame de Paris has had three timber spires made of oak, known as flèches. The first was built between 1220 and 1230. It eventually became so damaged that it was removed in the late 18th century. The second was put into place by the French architect Eugène Viollet-le-Duc in 1859, and destroyed in a major fire on 15 April 2019. Work to construct a third one started in 2022, and was completed when the new copper rooster wind vane was placed on top of the new spire on 16 December 2023, and the third spire was unveiled on 13 February 2024.
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