The architect misestimated the fire situation; it took six minutes for the security guard to tell the fire department from the discovery of the fire.
According to < New York Times > in the United States and several French media reports, the reason why France's world-famous Virgin Mary complex in Paris suffered so much damage in the recent fire is closely related to the huge loophole in the fire protection system of the Virgin Mary compound.
Among them, Benjamin Mutong (Benjamin Mouton), an architect who was in charge of the fire protection works at the Virgin Mary House between 2000 and 2013, once believed that the 800-year-old oak material in the attic of the Virgin Mary House would not burn very quickly after the fire, but would only burn slowly. This will give firefighters enough time to put out the fire.
So after the merciless fire engulfed Virgin Mary, Mutong told French media that he was also "surprised."
He said: "I was completely stunned by the speed with which these oak houses in Virgin Mary were burning. It is inexplicable that such an old oak material cannot burn as fast as a match.
(pictured in an interview with French media, Mutong says the 800-plus-year-old oak shouldn't burn so fast.)
In this regard, an Australian firefighting expert interviewed by < New York Times > believes that Mutong may have confused the time of the complete burning of oak with the spread of the fire: although oak may burn very slowly, But the fire spread quickly in such a large area of oak.
In addition to this miscalculation of the, Virgin Mary itself fire alarm system is also a lot of problems.
According to < New York Times >, the system does not automatically notify the fire department after the fire alarm in Virgin Mary Hospital, but requires security personnel to climb at least six minutes up the stairs to check the fire in the attic before security personnel call the police.
The newspaper also drew a schematic showing the process of climbing the six-minute staircase.
(the orange part of the picture shows the length of the stairs that security personnel need to climb for at least six minutes.)
However, New York Times also points out that, unlike fire alarm systems in many important buildings in the United States, fire alarm systems in France do not automatically notify fire departments.
France's Paris Fire Service said it was to avoid misreporting, so security personnel would first confirm the fire, and then call the police.
But in this way, from the fire alarm to the firefighters arriving at the Virgin Mary Court and entering the attic with a water gun, there was a delay of about 20 minutes. "20 minutes is a huge delay," he said. "I don't know why they created such a big delay," said the Australian fire expert interviewed by < New York Times >.
Finally, according to < New York Times >, these huge loopholes in the fire protection design of the Virgin Mary House in Paris are not all the responsibility of the designers, because the fire protection scheme has been approved by the French authorities on a layer-by-layer basis. And finally through the French Ministry of Culture.
At the same time, the newspaper said the budget was not the cause of the loopholes. In fact, the French official budget for the Virgin Mary fire protection system is adequate.
But according to Mutong and others in an interview with the French media, the problem may be due to the idea of "renovating as old" ancient buildings, that is, in order to preserve the ancient oak attic of the Virgin Mary Court in a complete way. The designer no longer installed fire prevention measures such as automatic fire extinguishers and firewalls.
As a result, some experts interviewed by < New York Times > believed that if the design team had been able to make some sacrifices in maintaining the original landscape of the 850-year-old building at that time, it would have adopted a more conciliatory protection scheme after taking into account the sensitive and complex fire situation of the present day. Many areas of the fire that have been badly damaged these days can be avoided or even better stopped.