Development of a Fire Damage Index for Immovable Cultural Heritage

== Abstract ==

Available fire risk assessment approaches are mostly developed for new buildings. 
These  approaches  encompass  minimum  provisions  defined  by  standards  that  are  valid  in 
certain countries, and few of these methods were thought exclusively for assessing the fire safety 
of  cultural  heritage.  Given  the  diversity  and  specificity  of  cultural  heritage  assets,  simple 
approaches  are  thus  required  to  analyse  their  fire  safety  and  establish  their  risk  mitigation 
needs. In this context, a simplified fire damage index dedicated to assessing the fire 
vulnerability of immovable cultural heritage assets is proposed. The proposed index is the result 
of a weighted multi-parameter evaluation that can be correlated with the level of damage that 
the  cultural  heritage  asset  (including  its  contents)  is  expected  to  suffer  under  a  fire.  The 
proposed index involves twenty-one indicators divided into four categories and offers a flexible 
approach for universal applicability. The performance of the proposed approach is illustrated 
for  two  case  studies  in  Portugal.  The  results  highlight  the  advantages  of  having  a  simple 
methodology that can be used for the preliminary risk analysis of a large number of assets to 
identify those requiring risk mitigation measures or detailed and resource-demanding analyses.

== Full document ==
<pdf>Media:Draft_Content_256200921p694.pdf</pdf>
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