AIC's 46th Annual Meeting

Fire poses one of the greatest threats to irreplaceable cultural heritage. While ensuring human safety is of uttermost importance, fire and rescue departments and cultural heritage institutions have also endeavored to understand the impact that museum fire has on the exhibits. So far, a list of possible risk factors has been drawn, but no empirical analysis has ever been carried out on any of the factors. As different materials react to the changes of temperature and humidity differently, this paper selects pottery, a commonly seen material, for our examination. We will first identify the possible risk factors for the exhibits when museums catch fire. We then choose high-temperature and smoke as the research subject and conduct experiments on four types of Taiwanese traditional potteries (two types traditional Chinese handmade teapots, Zisha clay and Taiwan red-clay teapot) for tolerance testing. The possible complication that wooden exhibition cases may cause for the above-mentioned potteries is also considered. Based on the experiment results, this paper will make rescue priority suggestion for pottery type exhibits in museums. It is hoped that the research will make contributions for museums to make fire safety and evacuation plan, and preventive conservation in the future.