9:57 a.m., in Saint-Louis de Versailles, the alarm sounds in the cathedral… A fire? Don’t panic, this is an exercise. “ Are you coming to put out the fire of the Gospel? », asks with a smile a passer-by from the neighborhood, wrapped in a large green wool shawl, to one of the fire officials already present on Place Saint-Louis.
A few days before the reopening of Notre-Dame de Paris, the Regional Directorate of Cultural Affairs (Drac) of Île-de-France organized this life-size training as part of the “cathedral security plan” launched following the fire at the Parisian cathedral, in 2019. The idea is to test the responsiveness of the emergency services both to fight the fire and to protect the works housed in the building. The fire is believed to have broken out during the night.
« The fire started at 10 p.m. in the high attic of the west transeptspecifies Thierry Autenzio, fire commander in charge of planning operations and heritage referent. The sexton received the alarm in his studio which indicated that the sensor installed in that area had been activated. He went upstairs to clear the doubt in five minutes, then confirmed the fire by calling the firefighters. » It is then a “ war against time » that the emergency services hire to arrive at the scene as quickly as possible.
A movie star truck
Twenty minutes later, two gleaming fire trucks are installed on the west and east sides of the classic cathedral built by Jacques Hardouin-Mansart in the 18th century. One of them has become a movie star since the Notre-Dame fire. It is the machine which helped to extinguish the flames of the North tower of the Parisian cathedral on the evening of April 15, 2019 before replaying its decisive role in the film by Jean-Jacques Annaud, Notre Dame is burning (2022).
Spectacular, the vehicle is mounted on a jack to stabilize it when deploying the 46-meter-high ladder from where a firefighter can spray the building with a lance spewing 4,000 liters of water per minute ( compared to 500 for a classic lance)! It does not leave young children indifferent, hypnotized by the scene and the flow of water flowing over the building.
On the east side, the truck had difficulty making its way, hampered by vehicles parked at the foot of the cathedral. “ These are the conditions of reality, we have to deal with them! We have the technical means to move them if necessary », puts Thierry Autenzio into perspective. An hour after the fire started, it’s not yet out, but it’s well on its way.
17 works sheltered from fire
Simultaneously, 17 of the most important works housed in the cathedral began to be sheltered from fire and runoff water, according to priorities set in the cultural property protection plan. Carried out by the fire services with the architect of the buildings of France and that of the historic monuments responsible for the building, these evacuation plans including the list of priority works were initiated at the national level in 2016, but few had been implemented in place in 2019. That of Notre Dame, fortunately, was completed.
« This is one of the lessons of Notre Dame because this plan achieved the desired result », Comments Laurent Roturier, regional director of the DRAC Île-de-France. To date, 80 cathedrals out of the 87 in charge of the State have it, compared to 13 in 2019, but not all have been tested like in Versailles this morning, far from it. French specificity, these plans arouse the interest of other European emergency services. A delegation of Greek firefighters also attended the exercise.
More tests to come
« Works 1 and 2 have been extracted, work 6 is in progress », Specifies a deputy to the commander, during a situation update. Identified by numbers, these valuable objects are not named to avoid arousing the desire of thieves. “ During a previous exercise in a cathedral, the most precious works whose titles had been disclosed were then stolen! », says Lieutenant-Colonel Alain Chevallier, responsible for the cathedral security plan at the national level. The plan for grouping the works is also stored in a locked cabinet to which only firefighters have access.
In coordination with the architect of the buildings of France and curator of Saint-Louis de Versailles, Bénédicte Lorenzetto, the fire teams manually transport the works from the sacristy, after photographing them to document possible damage, to the Chapel of Providence . Goods that cannot be moved are covered with special tarpaulins. “ One of them is too smallnoted the firefighters. This is one of the things to correct in the plan. »
At the end of this first full-scale exercise in Île-de-France which mobilized 40 firefighters, lessons will be learned to improve the backup plans. Other tests must take place in the regions, in Toulouse or Meaux. At noon, the bells ring, the exercise ends, and it is the turn of the cathedral organist to rehearse.
