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Brazil museum fire: 'incalculable' loss as 200-year-old Rio institution gutted
Brazil's oldest and most important historical and scientific museum has been consumed by fire, and much of its archive of 20 million items is believed to have been destroyed.
The fire at Rio de Janeiro's 200-year-old National Museum began after it closed to the public on Sunday and raged into the night. There were no reports of injuries, but the loss to Brazilian science, history and culture was incalculable, two of its vice-directors said. "It was the biggest natural history museum in Latin America. We have invaluable collections. Collections that are over 100 years old," Cristiana Serejo, one of the museum's vice-directors, told the G1 news site. Marina Silva, a former environment minister and candidate in October's presidential elections said the fire was like "a lobotomy of the Brazilian memory".
Brazil museum fire: Funding cuts blamed as icon is gutted
A deputy director at the museum, Luiz Fernando Dias Duarte, expressed "immense anger", and accused Brazilian authorities of a "lack of attention". "We fought years ago, in different governments, to obtain resources to adequately preserve everything that was destroyed today." Demonstrators gathered at the gates of the museum on Monday morning, protesting against the budget cuts that they blame for the fire. Police were seen firing tear gas.
One issue appears to be the lack of a sprinkler system. Mr Dias Duarte told Globo TV that a $5.3m (£4.1m) modernisation plan agreed in June would have included the installation of modern fire prevention equipment, but only after October's elections. A major dinosaur exhibition, which was forced to shut following a termite attack five months ago, had recently reopened only thanks to a crowdfunding campaign.
Also at National Geographic, The Irish Times, and CNN.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 05 2018, @12:07AM (3 children)
No.
A sprinkler system will destroy the artifacts if it ever activates. You need an inert gas, such as Halon, or... you could just not have a flammable building.
This isn't so complicated. Your choices are numerous: stone, glass, most metal (excluding foam and absurd choices like potassium), some plastics (silicone, phenol-formaldehyde, Teflon), concrete, porcelain...
Laws that explicitly require fire alarms and sprinkler systems are generally written to support the industry that makes and installs that stuff. Good buildings normally don't need it unless you are storing something like powdered coal.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday September 05 2018, @12:21AM
Well, public buildings usually store something or another, and that something is usually flammable. Sprinklers can save the people who are inside of the structure when the fire starts.
A not very secret secret: water sprinklers are usually full of dissolved oxygen, or air. A Navy fire fighting team consists of two hoses - each hose has a nozzle man, and two, three, or more hose tenders. Hose 1 goes into the fire, literally, to fight the fire. Hose 2 has a wand attached to the nozzle, to spray team 1 with spray, or more accurately, fog. It keeps the firefighters cool, and it supplies breathable air. That air is essential to rescuing any trapped personnel that the fire fighting team may discover.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Snotnose on Wednesday September 05 2018, @12:38AM
*cough* umbrella *cough*
I get what your saying, but it seems to me, like others have said, Halon or whatever would solve the problem. Is that cheaper than maintaining the 2 closest fire hydrants that didn't work? I dunno. Is it relevant? Water is water. Applied directly to the source, like a sprinkler (put the fire out, lose 10% of your collection) vs a fire truck (spray everything, lose everything). Key point is the fire trucks didn't do jack shit here, from my understanding it's because the hydrants didn't work.
If "fire hydrant that didn't work" didn't trigger your "dafuq" response, you're much more tone deaf than I am.
How does a fire hydrant "not work"? Around here people run over the damned things once a month or so and spray geysers of water for hours until someone finds the magic key to turn it off (fun fact: we're in a perpetual drought. A busted fire hydrant wastes more water in a minute than I use in a year). If a fire hydrant doesn't work IMHO that means there is no water in the area. Was this museum in a slum, where the guv'mint didn't think it was important to provide water? There was nobody at the museum to notice there was no water, and couldn't push for a Halon or whatever system?
Note to self: Never loan my 1964 Star Trek 10 book to Brazil.
When the dust settled America realized it was saved by a porn star.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 05 2018, @12:12PM
Plastic is so much cheaper