A fire destroyed Brazil's National Museum. How safe is the Royal B.C. Museum?

Canadian museums will need toevaluatetheir emergency preparedness in the wake of a devastating fire that gutted Brazil'sNational Museum, says the head of B.C.'s natural history museum.

Jack Lohman, chief executive of the Royal B.C. Museum in Victoria, says B.C. has some of the best safety measures in place among the severalmuseums he previously oversawin cities such as Cape Town and London.

Butconcern remains for smaller museums across the country, which may be more vulnerable, says Lohman, who is also vice-presidentof the Canadian Museums Association.

"This is something that we're going to have look at very seriously," Lohmantold Gloria Macarenko, host of CBC'sOn The Coast.

"There are plenty ofexamples across the world of these types of historic buildingsgoing up in flames and peoplereally having to think of a strategy of where you go from there."

'Monumental' disaster

The National Museum held the largest collection of historical and scientific artifacts in Latin America.

It'sunclear how many of its20 million items have been destroyed. A museum official estimatedthat perhaps 10 per cent of the collection survived.

"It's a disaster of absolutely monumental proportions," said Lohman, who's fluent in Portuguese andhad been to the museum several times, including a recent visit to its archives.

Upon learning of the fireSunday evening, Lohmansaid the Royal B.C. Museum quickly reached out toconsularofficials in Rio de Janeiro to offer assistance.

"As museum directors, we have to think, 'what next? And how are we going to pick up the pieces?'" he said.

Preparing for disaster

Critics say the accident could have been prevented, pointing to the museum's chronic underfunding and eroding infrastructure.

The 200-year-old museum most notably lackedsprinklers. Hydrants closest to the museum also didn't work, forcing fire crews to gather water from a nearby lake.

Lohman says the situation is markedly different at the Royal B.C. Museum, which was founded in 1886 and houses more than 7million items.

"We have concrete floors. We have sprinklers just about everywhere. We have fire hydrants. We have regular training," he said.

"There's a strong emphasis on emergency drills with 24-hour security."

Besides reviewing their firepolices, museums should be sending duplicates of their specimens to other institutions to avoid losing crucial scientific knowledge,Lohman said.

"You can't bring collections back unfortunately," he said."That's the really significantlesson here."

With files from CBC's On The Coast

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