Argentina. Chamber of Professionals and Fire Safety Companies (Capesi) called attention to historic buildings in Cordoba, since they have poor fire protection, which puts at risk both the heritage value of the structures and the elements they protect.
In the list of buildings that Capesi made are the Jesuit Block, the General San Martín Theater, the Royal Theater, the Social Bank, churches and museums, which have "very deficient facilities and with important latent risks."
In the Cathedral of Cordoba there are no sprinkler systems with water cisterns or smoke detectors.
"Historic buildings were not originally planned to prevent fires. And much less do they have detection and extinction facilities," explained engineer Juan Alippi, president of Capesi and director of the Argentine Chapter of the NFPA.
Alippi pointed out that the deficiencies come from the incompatibility between the old architecture not prepared for the current security criteria, the impossibility of sometimes modifying even in smallest details a wall, a carpentry or a ceiling and the difficulty of using traditional means of extinction in certain areas such as the Library Major, repository of unique and irreplaceable historical material.
"You can not use water like what a sprinkler or a hydrant would provide because the damage on the paper would be greater than the fire itself, nor clean gases because in many cases these are large volumes not foreseen for these solutions. We must then think about systems such as water mist that put out fires and do not damage, or minimize damage to the material to be preserved," the representative told local media.
