The fire at the Royal Saskatchewan Museum, part 1, Salvage, initial response, and the implications for disaster planning

A massive fire at the Royal Saskatchewan Museum in Regina, Canada, in 1990 demonstrated that the initial response phase following a fire is a crucial period when priorities are established and decisions are made that will det ermine the success of collection recovery. A chronology of the fire respons e shows the speed at which decisions are made within the chaotic aftermath of a disaster. At the Royal Saskatchewan Museum, several factors contribute d to an environment that slowed the initial response to soot damage and ham pered collection recovery. These factors are analyzed with respect to impro ving the position of collections recovery within the larger context of the recovery of the entire museum, its programs, and its public image. The muse um conservators learned the importance of an overall view in disaster plann ing; in particular, they found that special attention must be paid to the b alance of power during a disaster response because it will determine whethe r plans for collection recovery can be acted upon in a real disaster situat ion. During the fire response and recovery, museum conservators also learne d about the unique characteristics of soot and enveloped effective procedur es for the initial response to soot and the salvage of soot covered objects . Details of soot removal and cleaning during the recovery phase are discus sed in another article in this issue.