PARIS — A fire broke out Thursday in the spire of the medieval cathedral in the northern French city of Rouen, authorities said. Witnesses speaking on BFM television described smoke emanating from the spire, and recalled a devastating fire in 2019 at Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris that toppled its spire and collapsed its roof. The cathedral in Rouen in Normandy is widely known from a series of paintings by impressionist Claude Monet. Mayor Nicolas Mayer-Rossignol posted on the social media platform X that “the beginning of a fire is underway on the spire of the cathedral of Rouen.