Imagine the guilt of causing the Notre Dame fire, by accident

horrible. I do wonder if a number of workmen are mentally retracing their steps wondering if they might have somehow caused it ... if it is even work related ... but being renovations were in progress it seems likely it might be.

Because like you said-the guilt would probably lead to suicide & if publicly known great castigation.

And everyone makes mistakes.

...and the worker never thought it would catch fire as he/she left hot tools on wood before and nothing happened. Of course, this isn't ordinary wood, this is wood that is so old that any spark could have set it off...in other words, its not wood anymore, its powder that fuels fireworks.

Or, as something my wife and I noted, they do smoke like chimneys over there...an unauthorized smoke break?

Worst scenario, it was semi-intentional. Cause a fire that requires an "extended contract"...but it goes beyond what was intended.

Either way, every worker has to be thinking, "did I fuck up? could I have caught this and stopped it?". Some will blame themselves, despite being innocent.

We all had pretty much the same thoughts. We could see the scaffolding for the work being done. All of us agreed that some poor worker was feeling really horrible and would be leaving the country most likely.

I hope no single person's name ever comes up. I'm can't believe anyone would do this intentionally. So I'm going to go with it being a complete accident.

like fire sprinklers that would have immediately drenched the area with water? Accidents happen, but were appropriate measures in place? I don't think this could really be blamed on one person.

Imagine being the programming team that created the glitch for the downturn / stall / nosedive of the 737 MAX, and the people on the testing team that didn't catch it. That would be even worse because hundreds of people died.

no single person should feel any guilt or responsibility, especially a worker. sure, maybe someone left a tool on or created sparks that could start a fire. but someone else planning the project should have anticipated and mitigated the risk. someone else should have had implemented redundant safety checks. some other person should have made sure adequate fire protection was in place. Pierre should have not gotten drunk Monday night and not been a no show. if a million people put a little more in the offering plate, maybe there'd have been more cash for proper renovation, sooner? there are always multiple causes to disasters, let's not beat up on the tradies who were doing the work.