Can anybody explain to me why there are no flying firefighters over Notre-Dame? In my old times I was stunned how fast the fire fighters over Paris were, in helicopter and fixed wing fire aircraft. Come on, in France these are soldiers, it is military fire fighting, so why no airborne support?
For those kind of operations, I think you need an “equipped aircraft” and “natural water” like lakes, rivers, dams?
Unfortunately, I don’t think La Seine qualify that much for that and the 10 CL215/2 Dash8 the Securite Civile has are based in Marseille or Aix-En-Provence (calling them from Belgium will be quicker) for the fire season, there are helis in Paris at Issy but I don’t think they are “firefighters” ?
So the ball is with ground firefighters….
Fire fighters are soldiers in Paris and seamen in Marseille.
When did you see helicopters and fix wing firefighting over Paris?
I doubt fix wing would be appropriate anyway.
They are based near Marseille and so have at least 45 min transit.
According to the press service from firefighters, dropping suddenly a large quantity of water over the cathedral would collapse the whole thing (including bricks / stones).
“All means are being used, except for water-bombing aircrafts which, if used, could lead to the collapse of the entire structure of the cathedral” – Paris fire brigade
I understand the problem with dropping water, but how about fire retardant? I have no idea how heavy that stuff is but watching the air tankers drop it on forest fires here it looks like it sort of disperses in the air to cover more ground.
On a more personal note, if I may: I used to live close by for many years and while I’m not religious that cathedral was, in a way, part of my life. I’m devastated……
Such a shame for an historic building. I would assume as has been said with a cubic metre of water being a metric tonne and with a reasonable forward velocity it wouldn’t help a structurally weak building.
Dropping anything from above the flames seem very risky.
We can only hope and pray for Notre Dame tonight, on this Holy Monday. Then it will be time to act and rebuild.
My hope is that people will unite after this fire, and understand how Christianity formed our Western civilizations.
Sounds like some good news. According to the live feed of Le Figaro the main structure has been saved. Let’s hope that’s correct.
172driver wrote:
I understand the problem with dropping water, but how about fire retardant? I have no idea how heavy that stuff is but watching the air tankers drop it on forest fires here it looks like it sort of disperses in the air to cover more ground.
It’s as heavy as water (even a bit heavier). The water also looks like spray when dropped out from firefighting aircraft but actually the force of hitting the ground is pretty high.
I took these pictures last weekend.
