Covering on Spire of a Cathedral That Monet Painted Catches Fire

A tarp covering the spire of a cathedral in Rouen, France, that inspired the artist Claude Monet caught fire on Thursday morning, the city officials said.

The cathedral, Notre-Dame de Rouen, about 70 miles northwest of Paris, was evacuated, and emergency services were at the site, local officials said on X.

“All of the public resources have been mobilized,” the city’s mayor, Nicolas Mayer-Rossignol, wrote on X, adding that the fire’s cause was unknown.

Caroline Dutarte, a Rouen official, said that only a tarp covering the cathedral’s spire had caught fire and that the blaze was under control. She said the tarp had been in place around the spire because the cathedral was undergoing renovation work.

“There doesn’t seem to be too much damage and, above all, no one was injured,” Ms. Dutarte said.

Monet painted the Rouen cathedral more than 30 times in the early 1890s, according to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, often capturing its facade from different angles and at different times of the day.

This is a developing story.

Ségolène Le Stradic contributed reporting from Paris.