NFPA Journal - January/February 2020 - 61

Obviously fire can impact a structure from the inside as well. While
it's separate from the wildfire issue,
what measures are in place in the
museum to protect its collection
from internal sources of fire?
We have the advanced smoke evacuation system that I previously mentioned
which can remove smoke from the
building in the event of an internal
fire. In addition to that, we have fourhour fire separations, so should a fire
ever start or get into our building, it
can't go anywhere. The facility is very
segmented and compartmentalized
in that sense. We also have fire sprinklers inside the building. And we have
central monitoring run by our security group to monitor everything at the
center 24 hours a day, which would
include anything from security threats
to fires.

CHRIS SPRINKLE/J.PAUL GETT Y TRUST

complex was purpose-built in the late
1990s to withstand fire, so the museum
collection was without a doubt safest
inside the facility during the Getty Fire.
What makes it so resilient?
The building itself, on the outside, is
very fire-resistant. It's made from reinforced concrete and fire-protected steel.
There's over a million square feet of travertine, a very durable type of tile made
from stone. We have crushed stone
covering the roof. Inside, we have an
advanced smoke evacuation system. We
can basically pressurize the building to
shut off outside air and remove smoke
from inside. If we're getting a lot of ash
and debris in the air from a nearby wildfire, we can keep the debris from getting
in. So there's a whole host of things that
we can do to protect collections and the
building itself.
What about the complex grounds?
We have a very sophisticated irrigation system we can deploy in a fire
to wet areas around the building.
The property has a million gallons

of stored water, which helps us run
these kinds of systems and keeps
our fire hydrants working should we
lose all domestic water. We also do a
significant amount of annual brush
clearance all around the facility to
reduce fuel.
Firefighters used the Getty as a
rest area and lookout tower as they
battled the Getty Fire. Was that
something that had previously been
discussed between the fire service
and Getty Center officials?
Yes, we train with the Los Angeles Fire
Department every year. We train with
their leadership, with fire station staff,
so we plan scenarios for fire here. And
we tell them, "This is an area for you
to stage, operate, help support the
community." So that's part of the planning of fire protection at Getty. When
incident command is set up during a
wildfire in the Los Angeles area, often
our head of security is part of that
command, and he offers services and
support to the responding agencies
during an incident.

What do you say to people who
worry that fire sprinklers in a
museum are too risky because of
the fear of water damaging the
collection?
The way we look at fire sprinklers
is, should one sprinkler go off, that's
going to cover a small area, right?
It might make a 15-foot radius wet,
compared to if you have no sprinklers in a building, the entire building
can be damaged or lost to fire. It can
be catastrophic when you don't have
sprinklers. Look at what happened
to the National Museum in Brazil. It
didn't have sprinklers and it burned
extensively [in September 2018].
Unfortunately, we see that kind of
failure to invest in safety in facilities around the world. Why was the
Getty built differently?
Fire safety is something we've just
always thought about. It relates to the
preservation of our collection and to
the life safety of our staff as well as the
nearly two million folks who visit us
each year. Safety is part of our culture
at the Getty. If you were to talk to folks
internally, across the organization,
you'd hear the same thing.
N F PA . O R G / J O U R N A L * NFPA JOURNAL

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NFPA Journal - January/February 2020

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