Firefighters in the Normandy city of Rouen have managed to bring a fire in its world-famous gothic cathedral under control, calming fears of another disaster at one of France’s architectural jewels five years after the devastation of Notre Dame.Initial television images on Thursday showed a dark plume of smoke rising from the cathedral spire and people in the streets below looking up in horror.In later images, smoke could still be seen through a gap in the white cover encircling the scaffolding around the spire, but it was no longer rising in a dark column. After about 90 minutes firefighters said the blaze had been contained.Stéphane Gouezec of the Seine-Maritime firefighters said the source of the fire had been located and that crews were working to ensure there were no remaining “hotspots”. He told reporters the risk of the flames spreading was low because the fire was in an area where most of the structures were metal.He said construction workers had been the first to notice the fire and had alerted the authorities.Fire in the wooden frame of the roof caused devastating damage to Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris in 2019, and repairs are only now nearing completion.Fire also engulfed Copenhagen’s Old Stock Exchange, one of the Danish capital’s most historic landmarks, in April, toppling its spire. Large parts of the outer walls also later collapsed.The Rouen Cathedral spire had been surrounded by scaffolding and a white cover for several weeks.The local prefecture, which exercises authority in the region, said the cathedral had been evacuated and emergency services were on the scene. A security cordon was in place around the building. The prefecture said there were no reports of casualties and the extent of the damage was unclear.Rouen’s mayor, Nicolas Mayer-Rossignol, posted on X: “The beginning of a fire is under way on the spire of the cathedral of Rouen. The origin is unknown at this stage. All public resources are mobilised.”Today’s cathedral, built on the site of a fourth-century basilica and an 11th-century Romanesque complex, is the outcome of construction projects that started in the 12th century.It became especially well-known due to a series of paintings by the French impressionist Claude Monet, who captured the cathedral’s appearance at different times of day. The series was painted in part from a studio across the street from the cathedral.“As long as the sun is on it, there will be as many ways of being Rouen Cathedral as man can make divisions in time,” Monet wrote.skip past newsletter promotionSign up to Headlines EuropeA digest of the morning’s main headlines from the Europe edition emailed direct to you every week dayPrivacy Notice: Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.after newsletter promotionThe cathedral has a long history of damage and reconstruction: the spire of the central tower was destroyed after being hit by lightning in 1822.Its reconstruction was undertaken by architect Jean-Antoine Alavoine, who also designed the column in the Place de la Bastille in Paris. Alavoine decided to build the spire in Rouen with cast iron. The idea of an iron spire was controversial; the novelist Gustave Flaubert denounced it as “the dream of a metalworker in a delirium”.At 151m, the cast iron spire is the highest church spire in France. For a brief time, the cathedral was the world’s tallest building.The cathedral was later damaged in the second world war, and a turret fell during a storm in 1999.Reuters and Associated Press contributed to this report