Protection against fire in Røros, a town of national cultural heritage

Røros was added to UNESCO's World Heritage List in 1980. A major fire in this town with densely built wooden houses would be a catastrophe, especially considering the potential loss of the irreplaceable cultural heritage.

White paper no. 41 from the Ministry of Labour and Government Administration (AAD) for 2000-2001 sets new national goals for the work with fire and explosion protection during the period 2001-2005. One of these goals is:

Loss of irreplaceable national cultural heritage due to fire should be prevented.

The local authorities in Røros want to secure the densely built log houses in the town from a major fire. In connection with the implementation of such initiative, the Ministry of Labour and Government Administration (AAD) allocated funds for a project to give the authorities in Røros professional support. The project was carried out by the Norwegian Fire Research Laboratory.

The project has collected and listed existing knowledge about fire prevention and protection in areas with densely built wooden houses, and is ment to be relevant to any older town or village with narrow built log houses. The report is evaluating the fire prevention plan for Røros and giving advice compared with this plan.

The first activity in the project was to make a summary of the fire safety in a random selected block of houses. Information about the building details, use of materials, relevant extinguish techniques and the current state of the electrical installations were examined. The result will be a guide in how to examine the fire safety in Røros, and also a general guide to similar projects.

The main objective has been to find effective measures to prevent a conflagration. Both organizational and technical fire prevention efforts and particularly efforts towards spread of flames and fire development are covered in the report. Relevant building regulations are also described. The use of water mist in attics and lofts to prevent flash-over and also the use of  residents in special designated extinguishing actions like prevention from ignition by flying brands in case of a fire, must be mentioned.

Strategies and fire protection methods as well as residential involvement regarding fire prevention are other important points.

The report "How to prevent conflagration in historic towns with densely built wooden houses" (in Norwegian only) include helpful information on the subject for any area with old wooden houses.

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