Fire threatening the Getty Villa in Malibu

Doomsday pictures fill the screens of our computers, televisions, and portable phones. Fierce fires fueled by stormy Santa Ana winds rage over the Los Angeles area in Southern California. Names of famous areas such as Pacific Palisades, Sunset Boulevard, Pasadena, and Malibu appear intermittently. Familiar beaches along the Pacific Coast Highway are almost unrecognizable. 

[Outer Peristyle of the Villa dei Papiri in Malibu]

Many homes and businesses are in ruins and I wondered what was happening to the Getty Villa in Malibu with its priceless art collection from Etruscan, Greek, and Roman antiquity – more than 40,000 artifacts (see: The renovated Getty Villa in Malibu). 

Although the fire came very close to the Getty Villa burning some trees and vegetation, the museum housed inside the reconstructed Villa dei Papiri from Herculaneum is still safe (see: The Getty Villa, an invitation to Roman life). 

The golden rule for homeowners in southern California is to regularly clear the brush around their property. It appears that Getty had made great efforts to clear the immediate perimeter. They had also implemented additional prevention measures such as on-site water storage and in-house irrigation systems. 

Luckily, the art galleries and the library archives could be efficiently sealed off from the smoke and safely relied on a double-walled construction. 

Let us hope all the means deployed by Getty will suffice to protect the invaluable treasures held within their walls.