“That’s what we call being called at the right time. Because half an hour later…”, underlined one of the firefighters who intervened on the evening of Wednesday, December 19 at the Saint-Pierre-ès church. -Links, in Boigny-sur-Bionne, alerted after a fire broke out.
The conclusion could indeed have been much more acrid than the few remnants of smoke ventilated, around 11:45 p.m., inside the building, that the slight smell of burning in the air which went with it and that the sound and (especially) unprecedented light projected by the flashing lights of the fire trucks on this church built in the 12th century.
Firefighters had been alerted three quarters of an hour earlier, around 11 p.m., by the person who came to close the doors of the church, who discovered the interior engulfed in thick smoke. The rapid intervention made it possible to control the start of the fire which had broken out at the altar.
The Virgin of the Rocks intact
The smoke was mainly the work of a carpet, which burned. The exact origin of the fire was not defined, the hypothesis of a short circuit or a start from a candle being put forward on site.
The intervention was completed, barely after midnight, without the need to monitor the building.
Restoration work was carried out in 2023 in this church, making it accessible for people with reduced mobility. It houses a copy of The Virgin of the Rocksby Leonardo Da Vinci, restored in 2020. It is intact.
