Skip to main content

Notre Dame fire: How drones and a robot called Colossus helped limit the damage

Screenshot via L'Obs

As the people of France begin to come to terms with Monday’s devastating fire at the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, stories are beginning to emerge of how the blaze was tackled.

Around 500 firefighters made their way to the 850-year-old Gothic structure when the alarm sounded at around 6.30 p.m. local time on April 15, but when they arrived, the enormity of the challenge that confronted them was immediately apparent.

To aid them in their heroic efforts to contain the flames, the fire department deployed a number of technologies, among them drones and a firefighting robot called Colossus.

The camera-equipped drones — a DJI Mavic Pro and Matrice M210 — provided the team on the ground with invaluable close-up and real-time aerial data about the intensity of the fire, its position, and how it was spreading. Thermal imaging cameras, if attached, would’ve allowed operators to see through the billowing smoke and identify hotspots, too.

In comments reported by The Verge, French fire brigade spokesman Gabriel Plus said the drones played a vital role in helping to prevent further damage to the cathedral.

An increasing number of fire departments around the world are turning to drones for such activities, in part because of their ability to be quickly deployed, as well as being highly versatile and more cost-effective than helicopters.

With a steady stream of information being sent from the drones to the team on the ground, those organizing the response were able to use the data to call the next move. The ferocity of the fire meant there was a heightened risk of heavy wooden timbers falling from the cathedral’s burning attic, increasing the danger for anyone inside. With that in mind, the response team opted to deploy Colossus, a robot firefighter capable of tackling serious fires from within a burning structure. A video (below) spotted by Jalopnik shows Colossus at work inside Notre Dame on Monday.

Comment le robot Colossus a participé au sauvetage de Notre-Dame de Paris

The rugged robot was built by French tech firm Shark Robotics and features a motorized water cannon that can be operated remotely. A high-definition camera with a 360-degree view, a 25x zoom, and thermal imaging capabilities are also part of the package, giving the operator a comprehensive view if and when the 1,100-pound (500 kg) robot needs to travel beyond the line of sight.

While Colossus is admittedly a slow mover — it can only reach 2.2 mph (3.5 kph) — its ability to tackle all kinds of terrain makes it an invaluable piece of equipment for the Paris Fire Brigade and others that use it.

With some news reports suggesting Notre Dame could have been just half-an-hour from further collapse, the technology used at the cathedral on Monday demonstrated its worth as it complemented the work of hundreds of firefighters risking their lives to tackle the blaze.

One firefighter was seriously injured at Notre Dame on Monday, while no deaths were reported.

The cause of the fire is still under investigation, though some officials have speculated that renovation work taking place at the time may have played a part.

Editors' Recommendations

Trevor Mogg
Contributing Editor
Not so many moons ago, Trevor moved from one tea-loving island nation that drives on the left (Britain) to another (Japan)…
Digital Trends’ Top Tech of CES 2023 Awards
Best of CES 2023 Awards Our Top Tech from the Show Feature

Let there be no doubt: CES isn’t just alive in 2023; it’s thriving. Take one glance at the taxi gridlock outside the Las Vegas Convention Center and it’s evident that two quiet COVID years didn’t kill the world’s desire for an overcrowded in-person tech extravaganza -- they just built up a ravenous demand.

From VR to AI, eVTOLs and QD-OLED, the acronyms were flying and fresh technologies populated every corner of the show floor, and even the parking lot. So naturally, we poked, prodded, and tried on everything we could. They weren’t all revolutionary. But they didn’t have to be. We’ve watched enough waves of “game-changing” technologies that never quite arrive to know that sometimes it’s the little tweaks that really count.

Read more
Digital Trends’ Tech For Change CES 2023 Awards
Digital Trends CES 2023 Tech For Change Award Winners Feature

CES is more than just a neon-drenched show-and-tell session for the world’s biggest tech manufacturers. More and more, it’s also a place where companies showcase innovations that could truly make the world a better place — and at CES 2023, this type of tech was on full display. We saw everything from accessibility-minded PS5 controllers to pedal-powered smart desks. But of all the amazing innovations on display this year, these three impressed us the most:

Samsung's Relumino Mode
Across the globe, roughly 300 million people suffer from moderate to severe vision loss, and generally speaking, most TVs don’t take that into account. So in an effort to make television more accessible and enjoyable for those millions of people suffering from impaired vision, Samsung is adding a new picture mode to many of its new TVs.
[CES 2023] Relumino Mode: Innovation for every need | Samsung
Relumino Mode, as it’s called, works by adding a bunch of different visual filters to the picture simultaneously. Outlines of people and objects on screen are highlighted, the contrast and brightness of the overall picture are cranked up, and extra sharpness is applied to everything. The resulting video would likely look strange to people with normal vision, but for folks with low vision, it should look clearer and closer to "normal" than it otherwise would.
Excitingly, since Relumino Mode is ultimately just a clever software trick, this technology could theoretically be pushed out via a software update and installed on millions of existing Samsung TVs -- not just new and recently purchased ones.

Read more
AI turned Breaking Bad into an anime — and it’s terrifying
Split image of Breaking Bad anime characters.

These days, it seems like there's nothing AI programs can't do. Thanks to advancements in artificial intelligence, deepfakes have done digital "face-offs" with Hollywood celebrities in films and TV shows, VFX artists can de-age actors almost instantly, and ChatGPT has learned how to write big-budget screenplays in the blink of an eye. Pretty soon, AI will probably decide who wins at the Oscars.

Within the past year, AI has also been used to generate beautiful works of art in seconds, creating a viral new trend and causing a boon for fan artists everywhere. TikTok user @cyborgism recently broke the internet by posting a clip featuring many AI-generated pictures of Breaking Bad. The theme here is that the characters are depicted as anime characters straight out of the 1980s, and the result is concerning to say the least. Depending on your viewpoint, Breaking Bad AI (my unofficial name for it) shows how technology can either threaten the integrity of original works of art or nurture artistic expression.
What if AI created Breaking Bad as a 1980s anime?
Playing over Metro Boomin's rap remix of the famous "I am the one who knocks" monologue, the video features images of the cast that range from shockingly realistic to full-on exaggerated. The clip currently has over 65,000 likes on TikTok alone, and many other users have shared their thoughts on the art. One user wrote, "Regardless of the repercussions on the entertainment industry, I can't wait for AI to be advanced enough to animate the whole show like this."

Read more