PHOTOS – Around a hundred firefighters mobilized to respond to the fire on the roof of the church of Saints François in Montpellier

Firefighters intervened throughout Wednesday to put out a fire which broke out early in the morning in the roof of the Church of Saints Francis. It suddenly caught fire following work on waterproofing. It is the double-skin metal cladding roof which rests on a wooden frame which has been very seriously damaged.

Around a hundred firefighters were mobilized to the scene. The procedure for safeguarding the works of the church made it possible toevacuate paintings and valuable objects.

But the intervention lasted all day due to the complexity of operations. “The metal roof made of zinc or tin made accessibility very difficult” explains the general controller Éric Florès, the boss of the Hérault firefighters. We had to dig holes in it to catch the fire. And it's quite a complex strategy to implement so that the fire doesn't spread to other buildings and ensure that it doesn't collapse inside either.”

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A marble statue of the Virgin Mary evacuated

Guilhem Knockaert, priest of the parish of Saints Francis of Montpellier, attended, very moved, the out of a half-ton statue, that of the Virgin Mary, who was threatened by the fire. It took around ten men to carry her out of the building.

“This statue is a single piece of marble and it was already present here in 1902, in what was the old church of Saints Francis”explains the priest. “Due to a lack of solid foundations, the old church was destroyed in 1994 and rebuilt in 1997. Saturday evening, I watched on television like millions of French people the reopening of Notre-Dame. I was far from imagining that our church would in turn be the victim of a major fire.”

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All art objects preserved

A large part of the objects of art or valuables present inside the church could either be sheltered or protected. For those who could not be moved, the firefighters were able to take advantage of a backup plan put in place by the Fabre museum which had a large quantity of protective tarpaulin against fire or water. Thus, the altar and the church organ were able to be protected.

It remains to be seen now why the roof suddenly caught fire.

Sébastien Cote, deputy mayor of Montpellier in charge of security, also present on the scene for part of the morning, confirmed that waterproofing work was in progress.

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