Fire remains a threat

The sad sight of the burning Notre Dame in Paris reminds us that fire remains a threat to our buildings, our heritage, and our lives. Unfortunately, Notre Dame is just the latest in a series of fires that have destroyed cultural and historical repositories. Because of the travel patterns of Americans, Notre Dame is much more familar — what percentage of people reading this have been inside Notre Dame? — but here are others.

• The National Museum of Brazil was destroyed by fire last year.
• National Museum of Natural History in New Delhi, India was destroyed by fire in 2016. (It was a modern building with a sprinkler system, but the sprinkler system was out of service.)
• Much of Windsor Castle in the UK was destroyed by fire in 1992. Likewise York Minster in 1984.

This list doesn't include the recent devastation of cultural and historic materials in Yemen, Syria, or Iraq. Wikipedia has a long list of "destroyed heritage". Some of these losses are attributable to earthquakes and floods. Others are of human origin.

Retrofitting old buildings with sprinkler systems and replacement of fire-proof materials with fire-resistant materials are costly and disruptive. In many cases, including Notre Dame, available funds could hardly offset the advance of deterioration; increasing the resistance of the building to fire was just not on anyone's radar. Furthermore, the sprinklers themselves can cause massive water damage if activated. It appears inevitable that we lose one or two of these sites every decade. I wish it weren't true, but it's a painful reminder that the things we build and the things we collect are as transient as we ourselves.