Priceless art was destroyed by L.A. wildfires. Experts want to protect other cities from the same fate

As climate change causes increasingly severe natural disasters, it’s also increasingly threatening our art, culture, and shared history. In the recent Los Angeles wildfires, billions of dollars in fine art may have been consumed; architectural gems by Richard Neutra, Gregory Ain, and others were destroyed; and the warehouse of Belmont Music Publishing, a repository chronicling Austrian-American composer Arnold Schoenberg, was lost in what the composer’s son called “a profound cultural blow.” 

For museums, archives, and libraries, which often operate as nonprofits on limited budgets, meeting these increased risks poses significant financial constraints. This challenge has sparked global efforts to bolster the resilience of a range of cultural artifacts.

“We’ve now had three pretty large fires in a row, starting with the 2021 Marshall Fire in Colorado, to Lahaina in Hawaii in 2023, and now L.A.,” said Christina Cain, emergency programs manager for the Foundation for Advancement in Conservation (FAIC). “Unfortunately, this isn’t going away.”

More than half of U.S. galleries, libraries, archives, and museums reported increased water and moisture damage between 2017 and 2019, with 10% of that coming directly from natural disasters. Climate change mapping by the FAIC has shown that coastal areas and those near rivers remain at high risk of flooding. A third of U.S. museums reside within 62 miles of the coast, according to Elizabeth Merritt, the “in-house futurist” at the American Alliance of Museums. Studies from Greece and elsewhere have shown that changing climates, especially increased heat and humidity, will take a toll on ancient monuments, buildings, and artworks.

The initiatives working to combat ths are as varied as the sites, collections, and cultural treasures they’re meant to protect. There’s even a National Heritage Responders helpline in the U.S., a phone and email resource staffed with conservation experts meant to provide institutions with emergency assistance before, during, and after disasters. 

Cain worked the phone lines during wildfires in her home state of Colorado; during the Marshall Fire, she assisted curators at the Superior Historical Museum, which was consumed by the blaze. In addition to helping them find professionals for salvage operations, figure out how to deal with smoke damage, and process insurance claims, Cain also helped other museums in the pre-evacuation zone prepare in case the fire spread.

There has long been an understanding that artwork, institutions, and cultural sites are threatened by natural disasters. In 1966, the Arno River flooded its banks in Florence, Italy, submerging churches, museums, and storehouses of historical treasures with up to three meters of mud. The work of volunteers and citizens–called “angeli del fango,” or the Mud Angels, became an international story.

More than half a century later, such storms have become more common and severe. In 2018, Hurricane Maria wreaked havoc on Puerto Rico’s cultural scene; many institutions sustained millions of dollars in damage, with curators trying to limit the long-term impact. At one contemporary art museum, workers cut vents into the wall to allow air to circulate, preventing art-wrecking mildew and humidity from building up in a building bereft of mechanical systems. 

The recent Los Angeles wildfires, which spread to dense urban neighborhoods, have been a “worrisome development,” says Sarah Sutton, cofounder and CEO of Environment and Culture Partners, which focuses on the cultural sector’s environmental leadership. They underscore how climate change has placed more areas where we live—and store our records and artifacts—in harm’s way. 

Rising awareness—and sea levels—have meant some sites have received` outsized attention, and expensive investments in resiliency. The Smithsonian in Washington, D.C. is building a system of flood gates and stormwater systems, while San Francisco’s Ferry Building may be lofted up to seven feet by the Army Corp of Engineers in an effort to protect it from rising sea levels, part of a proposed $13.5 billion waterfront protection plan for the city. 

This kind of engineering feat, however, isn’t possible for the vast majority of sites. For other institutions, the typical playbook involves revisiting disaster and evacuation plans and creating more sustainable operations. Many have taken to hardening existing structures to help prevent flooding and wind damage. In 2021, for instance, Miami’s Vizcaya—a landmark 1916 home and garden on the waterfront—installed a system of Tiger Dams, water-inflatable tubes to prevent flooding, to protect the grounds from hurricane storm surges. Groundskeepers have also slowly swapped out plants across the site, planting gardens that can better handle saltwater infiltration. And in 2019, a floating flood wall installed at the National Archives in Washington, D.C. helped protect the Bill of Rights and other treasures from flooding. 

Alternatively, museums can invest in shoreline restoration and natural defenses to absorb floodwaters. In 2023, the Ford House museum and residence on Lake St. Clair in Michigan was awarded a $7 million grant from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to restore damaged coastline, which will stop erosion, absorb floodwaters, and better protect the site. 

Digitizing collections to serve as a backup is also something that is underfunded and underappreciated; many small museums have their databases on site. Communicating proactively with local emergency management professionals can help make them aware of at-risk collections and include them in the institution’s own evacuation planning. Curators have also moved collections from basements to upper levels, and even created the museum equivalent of a go bag, storing the most important artifacts in a way that makes it easy to pick them up and move when disaster strikes.  

UNESCO, the United Nations cultural heritage organization, recently held a global conference, “Fire Resilience for Heritage in a Changing Climate,” which included the release of best practices for prevention, including how to develop fire risk management plans and how to integrate Indigenous and native knowledge to manage landscapes for fire prevention.

There’s funding available to help institutions plan for disaster: The National Endowment for the Humanities offers grants for its Resilience Resources project, and some states, like Colorado, offer their own grants. In Alaska, which has some of the fastest-rising temperatures due to climate change, the National Park Service has enlisted Inflation Reduction Act funds to help prepare historic sites for climate shifts by collaborating with tribal elders to map out key monuments and utilize Indigenous knowledge to protect the landscape.

Like with the wider impact of climate change, the damage will be spread in an inequitable manner, in many cases threatening smaller institutions that don’t have the resources to adapt. 

“When you lose a small-town history museum, which had archives about that town and collections from families that had been there for decades, it’s irreplaceable and heartbreaking,” said Cain. “You can’t tell the story of that place without them. Without them, is there a community? What holds that town together?”