PARIS (AFP).- Hundreds of years' old and at least a metre thick, the first ancient oak trees have been felled in northwest France for use in the reconstruction of the fire-damaged Notre-Dame cathedral in Paris.

Experts have been scouring forests across France to select 1,000 developed oaks with long, straight trunks that can be used in the spire and roof of the Gothic cathedral, which was ravaged by fire in April 2019.

The first four were loaded onto a heavy goods trailer by crane on Thursday in the forest of Berce near Le Mans, 200 kilometres (125 miles) from Paris, with another four set to follow on Friday.

"We're lucky to be working with these exceptional specimens," Mickael Durand, manager of the sawmill selected to cut them, told AFP. "We're working with 15 tonnes and you can't make any mistakes... "They're maybe 300 years old."

The trees will be cut up and stored for 12 to 18 months to prepare them for use in the reconstruction phase which is set to begin in late 2022, allowing for a planned reopening of the cathedral in April 2024.

More than 800 million euros ($950 million) has been received or pledged from private and corporate donors for the painstaking rebuild of the 13th-century masterpiece.

While the spire collapsed and much of the roof was destroyed on April 15, 2019, the efforts of firefighters ensured that one of the most famous buildings in the French capital survived the night.


© Agence France-Presse