Notre Dame: admit that the workers have smoked in the region …

Some workers employed in the renovation of the Notre-Dame cathedral, smoked at work while this was prohibited, admitted the company in charge of the tasks. According to the French weekly The chained Duck, the researchers found seven cigarette butts near the scaffolding, although they do not rule out that the fire started because of failures of the electrical system.

"Indeed, some employees violated this ban from time to time and we regret it," said Marc Eskenazi, spokesman for the company Le Bras Frère, responsible for the renovation of the cathedral, after the publication of the The chained Duck. "(The workers) informed the police," he added.

Although he admitted the mistake of the employees, Eskenazi ruled out that the badly lit cigarette butts were at the origin of the fire last week. "Anyone who has ever tried to light a fireplace (knows it) does not spend a lot when a cigarette is thrown on an oak trunk," the spokesman said. The renovation also involved tasks in the area where 1,200 oak trunks supported the roof of the cathedral. Eskenazi admitted that "it was forbidden to smoke on scaffolding," but that the company's employees still had it because it was "a bit complicated to go down because it took time. "

Another of the hypotheses in the study suggests that the fire started in the electric motors elevators placed to mount the scaffolding, but Eskenazi badured that they posed "no problem". "They are in no way responsible for the fire," he said.

The researchers do not rule out that the fire is accidentally caused by a short circuit, although the remains of the fire have yet to be studied to determine the causes. according to The chained Duck, irregularities were detected in the electrical installation of the line that fed a set of bells in the needle and in which it crossed the wooden beams of the cathedral.

This power line was provisionally authorized in 2012 at the request of the monks of Notre-Dame during the renovation of the main steeples. In this way, the goal was to electrify the bells, although the device had to be replaced. The French publication stated that the replacement had never been made and that on this pose was installed the oak scaffold intended for the restoration of the needle.

Investigators said that the needle bells rang the day of the fire at 6:04 pm (local time) to call the planned mbad at this time. Twelve minutes later, the first smoke alarm was triggered against the cathedral security post and five minutes after the first fire alarm was triggered. At that time, the evacuation of parishioners began. However, both security officials said they did not find the flames and, thinking that it was a false alarm, allowed people to enter the cathedral.

according to The chained Duck, the directors were sent to search for the fire in the wrong place, although the security company denied it outright. At 0630, the alarms rang again and the evacuation was done again. Twenty minutes later, the agents found fire at the base of the needle.

Around 6:30 pm, the alarms sounded again and, at that moment, the faithful were evacuated and, between ten and twenty minutes later, the agents located the fire at the base of the needle.

At 6:51 pm, the two security guards called the fire department, who arrived within 10 minutes but found no fire hydrant powerful enough to extinguish a fire that had already developed. According to the French weekly, the fire-fighting facility was designed to extinguish a fire at first, but as it had taken so long to locate it, it was already too advanced.