[Magdalen] France basilica fire: Saint-Donatien in Nantes in ruins - BBC ...

[Cantor03 at aol.com]

In a message dated 6/16/2015 12:20:03 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time,  
houstonklr at gmail.com writes:

what a  tragedy...

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-33134463




Even though a roof support skeleton is visible in one of the  pictures,
suggesting the use of steel (or, at least iron), there must have been
a large amount of timber for the fire to have reached this intensity.
 
Fires like this were always the bane of medieval churches, and the
Romanesque apparently more so than the later gothic designs.  Most  of
the major cathedrals in France were built to replace fire damaged  earlier
churches in the Romanesque style.  It's probably why the French  opted
for stone vaulting almost completely in their "new" gothic buildings
since stone is obviously less prone to fire than timber vaulting.
 
And yet, the English seemed to have done very well with their timber
vaulting which they raised to new artistic levels with the  "hammerbeam"
construction.
 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hammerbeam_roof
 
 
 
David Strang.