False Notre Dame Fire Alarm Went Off 20 Minutes BEFORE Fire Started?

Yesterday’s tragic blaze at Notre Dame in the heart of Paris will be studied for years.

Restoration experts will be combing through the debris tirelessly, looking for clues as to how the blaze began, and how to prevent such a fate befalling other historical structures.

In terms of prevention, however, a strange fact has surfaced in the case of the Notre Dame blaze, and it is turning stomachs the world over.

An alarm was raised at Notre Dame at 6:20 p.m. on Monday night—23 minutes before the structure was engulfed in flames—but officials found no sign of a fire.

Firefighters who responded to a second alert raced to the scene but were unable to tame an inferno that ripped through the 12th century cathedral for the next 9 hours.

Paris public prosecutor Rémy Heitz announced on Tuesday that a full investigation would uncover how a massive fire was allowed to gut the cathedral.

“What we know at this stage is that there was an initial alarm at 6:20 p.m., followed by a procedure to verify this but no fire as found,” Heitz explained. “Then, there was a second alarm at 6:43 p.m. and at that point a fire was detected in the structure.”

Immediately, a million questions begin to race through our heads.

Did the respondents to the fire just not look hard enough?  Would 5 extra minutes of investigation have save the entire blaze from starting?  Was it pure negligence or laziness that allowed Notre Dame to suffer as she has?

Or, as a criminal probe is opened, was this a warning?

For the record, French officials have said that they do not believe foul play was involved, however the investigation is ongoing as to the cause of the fire.