FIRE SAFETY IN HERITAGE BUILDINGS

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...

THIRD INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON SAFETY AND SECURITY ENGINEERING 2009 (SAFE 2009), 1-3 July 2009, Rome, Italy INTRODUCTION The success of the first two International Conferences on Safety and Security Engineering held in Rome in 2005, and Malta in 2007, has prompted the organisers to reconvene the meeting in 2009. The purpose of the Conference is to provide a forum for the presentation and discussion of the most recent developments in the theoretical and practical aspects of Safety and Security Engineering. Safety and Security Engineering, due to its special nature, is an interdisciplinary area of research and applications that bring together in a systematic view, many disciplines of engineering, from the traditional to the most technologically advanced. The conference covers areas such as crisis management; security engineering; natural disasters and emergencies; terrorism; IT security; man-made hazards; risk management; control; protection and mitigation issues. The meeting aims to ...

Kidd (2005) and Maxwell (2007) recommended that all fire protection improvements in heritage buildings should follow the following principles: 1 Essential The fire systems should be central to meeting the objectives of the protection of life, buildings and contents. 2 Appropriate to Risk Any system that is installed should be opposite to risks being considered. 3 Compliant with legislation Systems should be installed according to demonstrable performance-based and other legislatively prescribed standards of safety. 4 Minimally invasive The retrospective fitting of fire systems should involve minimal degrees of physical intervention on the historic structure. 5 Sensitively integrated Installed systems should be designed to be integrated sympathetically with the historic fabric and its detail. 6 Reversib...

Arches of sprayed water are formed over World Heritage-designated houses during a fire prevention drill in the mountainous village of Shirakawa, central Japan, on Sunday November 2, 2008 . A group of thatched, multi-storied structures are on the list of the World Heritage sites of UNESCO. Source: http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/special/2008/11/180_33738.html Accessed: 03 November 2008

By: Einar Karlsen architect, Riksantikvaren (Directorate for Cultural Heritage) Norway 1. ABSTRACT The Norwegian Directorate for Cultural Heritage has been working systematically with fire protection since the 1980s. Maximum safety with minimum damage has been a main objective in fire protection of historic buildings in Norway. A fire strategy and an extended cost-benefit analysis should always be carried out to prevent damage to the fabric of the building and unnecessary aesthetic intrusion. Sprinklers were installed in the 1960s in some of the stave churches. During the 1980s sprinklers and fire detection systems were installed in a large proportion of the stave churches. The work was intensified at the beginning of the 1990s because of the threat of arson. During a period of less than five years´ extensive measures were carried out in the 28 surviving stave churches. In addition to the stave churches a program has been carried out to protect a selection of the other 400 most valuabl...

Author: Richard Forrest The introduction of conventional fire doors and partitions can have a disastrous affect on a building's character and historic interest. Risk assessment and the development of a strategic approach to fire safety measures can lead to more sympathetic solutions. While modern buildings are designed from the outset to allow the occupants to leave quickly and easily in the event of a fire, adapting an historic building is more difficult. Two primary factors must be considered: the protection of persons either living, working or visiting the premises; and the protection of the building fabric and its contents. If the building concerned is also open to the visiting public, the requirement for life safety measures is even greater. The ...

By: J. Andrew Wilson Assistant Director Fire Protection and Safety Smithsonian Institution This conference’s focus is on lessons learned in emergencies. The focus of this paper, however, is to emphasize prevention measures one should be following to avoid the most prevalent threat faced by all cultural institutions - FIRE. No institution is immune from fire. Until the owners/trustees of these institutions develop plans for dealing with the fire threat, they place the building and its occupants, visitors, and collections at risk. The complexity of these plans may vary from a simple evacuation plan, to a fire prevention program, to a more complex plan that includes passive and automatic fire protection systems. Property damaged by floods can often be dried out and restored. Structural damage from an earthquake might be repaired. Stolen property always has a chance of being recovered. Damage from fire, however, is usually permanent and irreparable. Historical buildings or con...