Tape, Boots and Fire Extinguishers: Protecting the Getty Villa from the Palisades Fire

Presentation authors: Les Borsay

Blogpost Summary by Kimi Taira, UCLA Library

Les Borsay, Senior Emergency Planning Specialist for the J. Paul Getty Trust, shared details of the Getty team’s response to the Palisades Fire at the Getty Villa. Through a combination of planning, luck, and teamwork, staff coordinated a successful defense alongside LAFD, resulting to limited damage of the property and collections.

Prior to the start of the Palisades Fire, the Getty’s Emergency Operating Center (EOC) was already on alert with the fire weather watch/high wind warnings and considering response scenarios. On the day of the fire, Borsay was already onsite for a routine site inspection, and the galleries were already closed to the general public which allowed the team to minimize the evacuation effort. Procedures immediately moved forward: PPE was distributed, airgaps were taped off at all possible doorways, dampers were closed, and outdoor irrigation systems were activated, evacuation pathways were secured and monitored. The EOC operated from the Getty Center and feeding the onsite team information from the security cameras to coordinate targeted defense efforts and filtered information on the overall situation. Essential staff from security, facilities, and grounds remaining onsite until late in the evening.

The next day, Borsay returned for a site walkthrough. Thanks to closing the dampers and sealing the airgaps, the collection galleries did not suffer any smoke damage. HVACs were still offline since the gas connections were cut to the Villa, so they worked to deploy power generators and humidifiers to restore improved collection conditions until the full system could be returned online. Security onsite was focused to protect from looters infiltrating the area. The subsequent recovery effort in the region was slow: at least one month after the fire, LAFD was continuing to check and extinguish hotspots, and all access to the Villa was limited for several weeks as the roads remained shut down or with limited entry. For more details and reflections of the Getty response team, please read: https://www.getty.edu/news/getty-villa-museum-palisades-fire/

A year after the Palisades Fire, this was a reminder for all cultural heritage organizations to revisit their respective emergency response plans, especially for those in Southern California who face wildfire and earthquakes.