Chile. The fire of the Cathedral of Notre Dame will be one of the topics that will be addressed in the Fire Summit- Heritage Protection: Prevention and Planning, which will be held on August 29 within the framework of SecurityExpo 2019 (from August 27 to 29).
One of the conferences will be given by the expert in Cultural Historical Heritage Risks of the Spanish Fuego Foundation, Alfredo Delgado, who is also a member of one of the most advanced centers in fire safety.
The Spanish expert will be in charge of the presentation "Notre Dame: Vulnerable heritage and its lessons". Delgado stressed that "unfortunately the Cathedral of Notre Dame has had to burn so that governments and organizations realize the risk existing in the face of losses in our cultural heritage," says the expert, who wonders if this fire will have served to make us aware of the fragility of our cultural heritage or will we look the other way again?"
Alfredo Delgado maintains that "we can no longer say that the fires in the heritage are from less developed countries, as they said when the National Museum of Brazil was burned."
The specialist emphasizes that "the disappearance of a cultural asset represents a misfortune not only because of its irreparable material loss, since it would represent an adversity for every person, regardless of the race and the country that is interested in culture and art for the cultural identity represented by the lost heritage."
Alfredo Delgado is emphatic in making an urgent appeal to those who make political and social decisions about the defense and conservation of cultural heritage: "This fire, as in the National Museum of Brazil, should mark a single objective: that governments and organizations put the necessary means to avoid these disasters and so we can transmit cultural heritage to present and future generations."
The reasons for the accident at Notre Dame
As for the reasons for the fire of the French Cathedral, Delgado explains that "the fire is due to a concatenation of errors that result in the destruction of the attic of the Cathedral."
That is, according to Delgado there was "a bad study that underestimated the risk and that the response to the fire they designed was too slow to fight a fire in time. But there was also a very conservative approach to preserving the historic wooden structure in its unadulterated form. The designers were determined not to alter the attic with protective measures such as automatic sprinklers and fire walls, it seems that they had miscalculated what needed to be protected from such an unusual, complex and irreplaceable building." He adds that the will to keep unchanged what was possible 850 years ago and what is suitable today, could have saved the attic and the needle."
Continuing with his analysis, the expert adds that the "risk factors increased due to the renovation work that was being developed in the attics, the structure was exposed to a great risk, since there were people working, scaffolding, lights, electrical systems, temporary elevators. The supervision of the works contrary to what was said, no one was going to check the area after the departure of the workers."
And he expresses that "the system they designed was based on the assumption that, if the cathedral ever caught fire, the old oak woods of the attic would burn slowly, leaving enough time to fight the flames."
It also reveals that the origin of the fire was added to the "lack of capacity to detect it in time. Human error caused the flames not to be warned earlier and the fire response wasted 31 critical minutes before it was alerted."
Another point that Delgado highlights is that fire alarms in France have never been automatically connected to the fire services. One solution would have been the permanent presence of a crew of firefighters in the Cathedral, as is the case of other significant buildings that incur a risk of fire such as the Palace of Justice, the National Assembly or the Louvre Museum.
The fire specialist anticipates what will be the topics of his presentation: "in a first part he will give an orientation about what Notre Dame represents for humanity. The socio-economic aspects of what the cathedral represents for tourism and the economy of Paris. A review of the construction and architecture of Gothic cathedrals".
He informed that in a second part he will talk about preplaning of firefighters' action in Paris, fire development, operational difficulties, extinguishing problems and the criteria of success in the actions of firefighters.
"And finally I will develop everything related to the rescue of the BIC, during and after the fire, and the emergency stabilization and structural consolidation works, which are being carried out."
What measure should governments and international organizations take to prevent disasters such as that of the Notre Dame Church?
I would tell you that disaster planning in cultural heritage is necessary, although disaster planning is not an easy task. It is necessary to have instruments, personal knowledge and economic resources that are not available to everyone. But, above all, the awareness of governments and organizations is paramount. Little or nothing can be done if they are not aware of the risks we face and even less if they do not actively participate in the planning processes.
Misfortunes like these have to occur if governments and organizations are to become aware of the risk to which our cultural heritage is exposed. We at the Fuego Foundation have been working for 15 years to publicize the exhibition of our Cultural Heritage in emergencies and designing proposals to avoid or minimize its consequences.
Delgado says that in the city of Valparaiso a Congress was held together with Sistemas Infobox Chile to transmit "our knowledge to the firefighters and personnel of Archives, Museums and Libraries. He adds that "there is beginning to be an increasing awareness of these issues by some governments and organizations, but it will take years for us to see that our Cultural Heritage is more protected."
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