It was hard to miss the news coverage of the fire at Clandon
in April, last year. It was a shocking event
that was particularly poignant for those of us with a personal involvement in
the heritage sector. Times like these make us especially aware that an event
such as this could potentially happen at any one of our properties.
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| National Trust staff work with the fire brigade to retrieve precious historical items. |
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A
week after the fire at Clandon. Members of the fire crew carry a gilded frame
away from the ruins.
All National Trust properties have procedures in place to help them deal with the aftermath of emergencies such as fire and flood. An essential part of emergency preparedness is staff training, and I was lucky enough to be able to attend a salvage course at East Riddlesden Hall earlier this month. The day included a full-on salvage training exercise which involved the local fire brigade! National Trust staff from across the country came together to learn about the best practice for dealing with an emergency.
Throughout the day we were
briefed on planning procedures and took part in salvage workshops to prepare us
for the salvage exercise in the afternoon; these included how to give first-aid
treatment to water-damaged historical items. For the exercise, we were split
into two main teams: the Salvage Team and the Recovery Team. Once the fire
brigade had given the go-ahead, the Salvage Team were suited and booted to
enter the building to salvage historic items. I was part of the Recovery Team,
whose job it was to receive the items from the Salvage Team and administer
first-aid treatment to the water-damaged objects in the designated ‘safe area’.
Of course the items being salvaged in the exercise weren’t part of East
Riddlesden’s historic collection, so a water-logged copy of Bridget Jones’ Diary was one of the
items we had to treat! This item went into our make-shift wind tunnel which we
had created using upturned tables, polythene sheeting and a couple of fans.
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