Cover photo by Jennifer Law Young

A Burning Question

Fires continue to destroy historic buildings, often during their restoration. But heightened vigilance and new ways to prevent them offer hope.

BY JEAN DUNBAR

Although a morning mist still hung in the air, July 18, 2000, promised to be another brutally hot day in Virginia's Shenandoah Valley. A crew of men repainting the roof of the former Rockbridge County Jail in the historic college town of Lexington got to work early, hoping to finish before the metal became a sizzling griddle. By 9:35 they were on the roof's south side, where they had a good view of the mighty Doric columns and soaring steeple of the 1845 Greek revival Lexington Presbyterian Church, half a block away. Perhaps one of them glanced up to check the time on the steeple's clock, as locals are wont to do. What he saw was smoke leaking from the steeple in a continuous stream, like steam escaping from a teakettle. Below, people strolled along on the sidewalks, and cars waited for green lights at the intersection of Nelson and Main. The painters began waving their arms and shouting, "The church is on fire! Look up, look up! The church is on fire!"

The first fire truck appeared in moments, its siren screaming. Lexington's well-trained firefighters were soon on the attack, working in broad daylight with modern equipment and an ample supply of water. One by one, every fire department in the area arrived to lend its support. Still, at 12:30 the steeple toppled into the churchyard. Then the roof collapsed, taking the upper edges of the walls with it. What few spectators realized, but fire experts know, is that all hope of saving Lexington's oldest surviving church—a building designed by Thomas U. Walter, one of the architects of the U.S. Capitol, and a place where Confederate Gen. Stonewall Jackson once taught Sunday school—was gone before the first truck arrived.

Modern methods of fire detection and fighting have reduced the number of people who die in fires each year, but the number of historic buildings and other cultural resources damaged by fire has remained steady for more than a decade, at about 2,000 annually nationwide. In recent years, fires have struck countless private residences as well as such landmarks as Chicago's Pullman Car Co., a factory and administration building where an 1894 strike helped inspire the organized labor movement; the 1932 ship-shaped S.S. Grand View Hotel in Schellsburg, Pa.; several historic New York City churches, including the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine; and the newly renovated Engine House at Philadelphia's Fairmount Waterworks, a marvel of Greek revival architecture.

Everyone reads about these terrible losses, but too often the owners of historic properties seem to believe that fire is something that can't happen to them. "When preservationists focus on the rehab of buildings," says fire-protection engineer Jack Watts, who directs the Fire Safety Institute in Middlebury, Vt., "they fail to notice that fire safety is the problem" they should address.

Fire professionals know what most owners do not: Once a blaze starts, no matter how skilled or speedy the fire department, an old building is going to be irreversibly damaged. Madison, Ind., has more than 1,500 19th-century structures in its historic district, the largest such grouping in Indiana. Stephen Horton has been Madison's fire chief for 18 years. "Everyone here thinks, ‘My historic building will never burn—and, if it does, the department will be here instantly, and they'll put it out at the point of origin, no problem.' Wrong!" Within five minutes, a fire can reach 1,100 degrees Fahrenheit, hot enough to begin melting structural steel. Wood lath, sheathing, and antique finishes combust at far lower temperatures.

Historic buildings may well lack the compartmentalization that slows fire. Places of worship, with their wide spans, are particularly vulnerable. Lexington Presbyterian's blaze, started by a paint-removing heat plate, roared through the open attic, using the steeple as a convenient chimney. In remodeled old buildings, fire travels with sinister speed through voids—dropped ceilings, furred-out walls, utility chases. Channels created by balloon construction, the speedy method of timber framing invented in the early 19th century, offer unimpeded paths for flames from basement to attic. Tight stairs, furnaces located in cellars, narrow doors, and tiny attic hatches complicate firefighting.

Because fire consumes most everything in its path, and quickly, it is unlike any other risk, says Mark Gilberg, research director of the National Park Service's Center for Preservation Technology and Training in Natchitoches, La. "And, unlike earthquakes, fire is everywhere, no matter where you live. As a result, it gets 10 out of 10 points in any risk assessment" of a historic property.

Many owners of such structures figure that since old buildings have been around this long, why should they burn now? "The integrity argument—that because a structure has lasted 85 years, it's not going to burn—doesn't hold up," says architect Wayne Meyer, of Arcodect Code Consulting in Florence, Ky. "Fire doesn't know if the building is on the National Register or not."

Danny McDaniel heads Colonial Williamsburg's security, safety, and transportation department and chaired the National Fire Protection Association's cultural resources committee. The association studies fires, keeps statistics, and produces codes. "The question is not will an old building catch fire," says McDaniel, "but when. Many last centuries only to be lost to, or severely damaged by, fire."

For more of this story, subscribe to the magazine or find our November/December 2002 issue on newsstands.

Read more excerpts from our current issue.