AN INTERNATIONAL OVERVIEW OF FIRE PROTECTION OF CULTURAL HERITAGE Kyriakos Papaioannou Dept. of Civil Engineering-AISTOTLE UNIVERSITY PO Box 429-541 24 THESSALONIKI-HELLAS Tel+30-2310-995793,fax +30-2310-995729, e-mail: kirpap@civil.auth.gr SUMMARY During the last decades, among various countries authorities, fire experts,conservationists and citizens a great concern on the conservation of cultural heritage including fire protection has been arisen. In this paper a global international review about the state of the art of this important matter is given. It is defined briefly the main terms and the philosophy of conservation, the principles of the fire safety design both in the prescriptive and in the modern fire safety engineering approach. Information about significant fires in historic buildings and sites, as well on several related international activities of different organizations and bodies is quoted. Finally a summary of two research activities going on in Europe is described. F
