France Confirms Extinction of Notre Dame Cathedral Fire (+video)

The iconic spire at the top of the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris collapsed after a major fire broke out Monday evening. Video showed part of the roof of the cathedral collapsing onto itself.

According to www.cbsnews.com, the flames were finally declared out on Tuesday morning. Gabriel Plus, a spokesman for the Paris fire service, said that “the entire fire is out,” and that the emergency services were currently “surveying the movement of the structures and extinguishing smoldering residues.” The next phase is for the experts to plan how to fortify what is left of the building, he added.

Firefighters managed to save the cathedral’s landmark rectangular towers from the blaze, but a Paris deputy mayor, Emmanuel Gregoire, said the cathedral had suffered “colossal damages.”

France’s president vowed to rebuild the landmark.

Parisian authorities said they were ruling out arson and possible terror-related motives as possible causes —at least for the moment— and treating the blaze as an accident, according to The Associated Press.