The Paris judicial office says that it took Notre Dame staff 23 minutes to discover the fire that broke out in the cathedral after a fire alarm sounded.
Remy Heitz, a Paris public prosecutor, says the cathedral’s fire alarms went off twice on Monday evening, with the first one going off at 6:20pm local time which is when a Notre Dame staff member checked under the roof only to find nothing.
When the fire was identified 23 minutes later after the second alarm sounded it was too late to save the 850-year-old cultural icon that suffered widespread destruction.
It has been reported that investigators have questioned 30 people who were mostly employees working on the renovation of the cathedral in regards to the cause of the blaze.
So far, more than $1 billion has been pledged to help restore Paris’ Notre Dame cathedral.