Plan set to protect sites from fire
TOKYO: Japan’s culture agency decided yesterday on a five-year plan to enhance the protection of cultural properties against fire in the wake of blazes that destroyed Shuri Castle in Okinawa Prefecture and Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris earlier this year.
The plan, to start in 2020, focuses on World Heritage sites and national treasures, and calls for installing sprinklers and fire hoses and replacing old electrical systems as well as fire-extinguishing equipment to protect the properties and tourists drawn to them.
It also calls for owners of the properties to compile a disaster prevention plan, hold regular drills and enhance anti-fire measures at nighttime.
Shuri Castle, located at a World Heritage site in the southernmost island prefecture, burned to the ground in late October, with an electrical system fault suspected to be the cause. It occurred on the heels of a fire that engulfed Paris’ Notre-Dame Cathedral in April.
While Shuri Castle buildings were equipped with fire alarms and extinguishers, they did not have sprinklers as their installation is only mandatory at accommodation facilities.
As its main building was a reconstructed building and not designated as a cultural property, the Cultural Affairs Agency held an emergency survey of 55 similarly undesignated buildings standing on World Heritage premises and found 45% of them did not have a fire alarm.
The five-year plan calls for protecting such reconstructed buildings by taking the same anti-fire measures for national treasures.
The government earmarked a combined 9.7 billion yen (about 2.7 billion baht) for fire prevention measures.
It will provide subsidies to property managers to cover up to 85% of the costs for installing fire-extinguishing equipment to facilitate protection of properties.