We’re used to watching things burn on the internet. But usually they’re things like ideas, reputations, values, decency, and truth. On Monday, we gathered around our screens to watch the realtime combustion of something more concrete, something many of us had seen up close, something we felt that — unlike the hundreds of trillions of ephemeral pixels that we endlessly hurl into the online abyss — we were supposed to be able to protect. In an age when everything feels digital we were reminded of the unrivaled meaning of a physical, real world structure. Here’s the latest on the fire at Notre-Dame.

+ The Atlantic’s Rachel Donadio on Witnessing the Fall of Notre-Dame. “How could Notre-Dame, which had survived for eight centuries—survived plague and wars of religion, survived the French Revolution, survived the Nazis—be falling? Notre-Dame, the heart of Paris, not only a Catholic site but the preeminent symbol of European cultural consciousness, the heart of France, the kilometer zero from which all its farthest villages are measured—how could this majestic structure collapse so fast?”

+ The internet is covered with photos of the structure burning. But this is not just a story of wood and artifacts. It’s the story of us. So here are photos of people reacting to the fire.

+ “They mounted the Leica on a tripod, put up markers throughout the space, and set the machine to work. Over five days, they positioned the scanner again and again—50 times in all—to create an unmatched record of the reality of one of the world’s most awe-inspiring buildings.” Alexis Madrigal on the The Images That Could Help Rebuild Notre-Dame Cathedral.