Braced with fire defenses, Getty art center faces LA flames

Braced with fire defenses, Getty art center faces LA flames
by AFP Staff Writers
Los Angeles, United States (AFP) Jan 11, 2025

After ripping through thousands of buildings, wildfires in Los Angeles were looming Saturday toward the celebrated Getty Center and its priceless collection.

Nestled in the mountains above Los Angeles, the famed art museum is within a new evacuation warning zone as the Palisades Fire roars east toward populated areas.

Dubbed a "beautiful fortress" and constructed of fire-resistant travertine stone, as well as cement and steel, the center has drawn museum experts from around the world to observe its safety system.

Its roofs are covered with crushed stone to prevent embers igniting, and even in the gardens, resilient plants were chosen.

Inside, the galleries can be closed off with a vault-like double door that, museum officials say, is practically impenetrable.

"Getty staff, the art collections and buildings remain safe from the Palisades Fire," the museum said Friday, hours before the evacuation warning.

"The threat is still happening," Getty added in an X post.

The museum's unique collection comprises 125,000 artworks -- including paintings by Rembrandt, Turner, Van Gogh and Monet -- and 1.4 million documents. It also houses a research hub and a foundation.

Museum officials have previously said the collection is protected within the center's fireproof structure, made up of 300,000 travertine blocks and 12,500 tons of steel bars.

"The Getty was constructed to house valuable art and keep it very safe from fires, from earthquakes, from any type of damage," said Lisa Lapin, communications vice president now and when Getty was threatened by fire in 2019.

"We are really built like a beautiful fortress, and everything inside is quite safe," she told AFP at the time.

- Getty shuts its doors -

Built more than two decades ago by architect Richard Meier, at a cost of $1 billion, the center's protection measures also include a million-gallon (3.8-million liter) water tank feeding its irrigation system.

The building's ventilation system has an internal recycling system, similar to those found in cars, preventing smoke from entering rooms from the outside.

Despite such extensive measures, Getty announced its closure earlier this week "out of caution and to help alleviate traffic."

When the 2019 fire threatened the center, it served as a base for firefighters battling the blaze.

Caused by a tree branch falling on power lines, that fire burned 745 acres (300 hectares) and destroyed 10 homes.

A fire two years prior also triggered safety measures at Getty, although it affected only the far side of an adjacent freeway.

"In both cases, we've been very confident that the center is fine," said Lapin in 2019.

The Palisades Fire has ravaged more than 22,000 acres since erupting on Tuesday, and is just 11 percent contained as a series of fires burn through Los Angeles neighborhoods.

The fire threatened the separate Getty Villa, which also has special flame resistant protections, earlier in the week.

Trees and vegetation around the coastal villa were burned, but the structure and collections -- including Greek and Roman antiquities -- were spared.