Fire Destroys the Roof and Spire of Notre-Dame

On the evening of 15 April 2019, an alarm sounded inside the cathedral of Notre-Dame de Paris at 18:20, prompting guards to clear the building. A guard sent to check mistakenly went to the attic of the adjacent sacristy instead of the main cathedral attic. By the time he was redirected and located the fire in the cathedral roof at about 18:48, an extensive blaze had already taken hold. Only then were firefighters called, and the first crews reached the cathedral shortly before 19:00, when the roof was already engulfed in flames.

More than four hundred firefighters responded to the emergency. France's civil security agency said water-dropping aircraft were ruled out because dumping water on the building could bring down the whole structure. Shortly before 20:00, the wooden spire collapsed, sending a fireball through the attic. Efforts shifted to halting the spread of flames into the north tower, where falling bells could have destroyed the tower.