14:48

A heritage fire safety expert has said his heart sinks and he fears for the worst every time he sees scaffolding on a historic building.

Stewart Kidd said all construction sites were inherently dangerous places, but the danger was so much higher in a heritage building.

“We’re talking about timber, we’re talking about very dry buildings because they are old, we’re talking about nooks and crannies, we’re talking about voids and ducts where fire can spread unseen and pop out a long way from where it started.”

He said data from Scotland suggested that about 8-12% of fires in heritage buildings occured when contractors were present.

“What we know is that any kind of hot work, effectively any form of heat application during construction, is dangerous. So not just welding, not just brazing, it is also cutting, it is also grinding, it is also soldering and it is particularly lead work on roofs.”

Kidd, a consultant who has written numerous books on fire risks in heritage buildings, pointed to the loss of the National Trust country house Uppark in 1989 which occurred while contractors were putting a new roof on after the 1987 gales. “They applied too much heat and set fire to the timber under the lead which smouldered and then burst into flames.

“I would be very surprised if the same hasn’t happened in Paris, that this wasn’t the cause.”

Many historic buildings have spaces between the ceiling and the roof, which appears to be the case at Notre Dame.

“It is exactly what happened at Windsor Castle when the fire broke into St George’s Hall. That is such a common design feature in old buildings, a false ceiling … they are more vulnerable when they have it because firefighters can’t get to it and it will spread to the point where it destroys the structure.”

He said the sad thing was that nobody appeared to learn from such cases.

“If I see scaffolding being erected on a heritage building my heart sinks because I know it has got a strong probability of a fire.”

Kidd said in the UK the only legislation was around the protection of people, not that of the building. “The government view is that property protection is a matter for the property owner and his or her insurer. They consistently refuse to get involved.”

If there was any consolation to be taken from Notre Dame, he said, it was that it did not appear to have had any timber beams replaced with steel ones during 19th century refurbishments, something which happened a lot at the time. “I guarantee that if it had steel beams in, which has happened in some churches as part of Victorian refurbishment, it could have pushed out the walls.”