Doubts persist around the origin of the fire at Notre-Dame de Paris cathedral in April 2019. Four years after the fire, three investigating judges are still investigating the origin of the disaster. “Many expertises are still in progress, new ones have been ordered,” said a judicial source.
Some expertise “aims to refine the zone and the moment of the departure of the flames. The others aim, by analysis of the seals, to determine the material causes of the fire, ”said the source.
On April 15, 2019, the 850-year-old, world-famous building, then undergoing restoration, burst into flames and lost its spire, roof, clock and part of its vault. by the flames. A preliminary investigation had been opened by the Paris prosecutor’s office to determine the origin of the incident.
Nothing indicates the criminal trail
Two months later, in June, the investigations were entrusted to three investigating judges with broader prerogatives. These investigations relate to the head of fire caused by the manifestly deliberate violation of an obligation of caution or safety imposed by law or regulation, occurring under conditions likely to expose people to bodily harm.
At the end of the preliminary investigation, the Paris prosecutor at the time, Rémy Heitz, indicated that he favored the accidental track, evoking a poorly extinguished cigarette butt or an electrical malfunction. Nothing seems since to accredit the criminal track. “During the past year, all the areas have been cleared” without however revealing “any new element likely to be exploited”, underlined the judicial source.
Several failures in the security of the cathedral
Since the beginning of the investigation, the criminal brigade has taken numerous samples from the hundreds of cubic meters of rubble, in sometimes difficult conditions, given the fragility of the building. Police officers were trained by rope access technicians to proceed, by abseiling, to collecting clues, above the vaults, in the precarious balance.
In parallel, several failures in the security of the cathedral were identified, in particular in the alarm system of the building, which contributed to delaying the call to the firefighters on the day of the fire, or on the electrical system. from one of the elevators. These malfunctions are probably not the cause of the fire, but could have allowed the flames to spread in the building.
In addition, a Parisian investigating judge is investigating lead pollution near the cathedral linked to the fire.