More on Damage to Grand Orient of France Paris HQ

Jiri Pragman at Blog Macconique has posted photos and more information about the fire at the Grand Orient of France's Paris temple and headquarters on rue Cadet. The fire is believed to have started in an electrical cabinet and took several hours to contain. Fortunately no injuries.

Here is my ragged translation. Feel free to correct my somewhat loose interpretation (brackets indicate my shortcomings):

Peter Mollier, the Director of Library-Archives-Museum has been able to provide some information about the consequences of the fire at the Paris premises of the Grand Orient de France.

He explains that by adopting safety standards over the last few years, the fire was confined to a comparatively limited area. The archives, library and museum collections were fortunately not affected. The one regrettable loss in terms of heritage is a [collection] having to do with Representative Abd el Kader, of which nothing remains.

According to other sources, the damage in respect to the building is estimated to be considerable in respect to the halls and Groussier Arthur Temple (Temple 1). The halls are nearly destroyed and the roof of the building has been gutted. The mezzanine is unusable and the walls of the Groussier Temple were damaged by smoke. Other Temples (3 and 4) were less affected, [but suffered water damage].

The fire and the ensuing necessary work will result in closure of the rue Cadet building and administrative services (date of reopening is unknown) and cancellation of meetings and other events indefinitely.



(Thanks to Andrew Hammer for correcting my errors.)