I know that shredded pieces of paper can literally be taped together if one has the patience. However can the same be said about burned pieces of paper turned to ash? Vintage media (before the internet) is considered lost as there’s no surviving copies except a few excerpts.

Even if you have only one page or segment of a literal file that was printed 5 decades ago: the rest of the contents are lost due to the fire destroying all records from that era. One could make educated guesses based on what’s left over but still won’t tell the full story.

Paper turned into ash isn’t comparable to shredded paper as the first one has a chemical reaction. Digital tools cannot recover lost documents that are printed before scanning technology existed, the only thing you can infer is from testimonials describing the contents.