Pacific Palisades Fire Could Test Getty Center’s Efforts to Protect Its Art Collection

Angelenos woke up Saturday morning to find that the Getty Center, one of Los Angeles’s most renowned art museums, is now squarely in the mandatory evacuation zone as the Palisades fire’s footprint has grown.

Perched on a hilltop, the Getty Center is a popular attraction for locals, tourists and students from the nearby University of California, Los Angeles. The museum boasts master works from as far back as the 1400s, and Van Gogh’s irises and works by Rembrandt, Rubens, Monet and Degas have long drawn people to it. Visitors often take day trips to Brentwood, the Westside neighborhood that houses the museum, for afternoons filled with European art, modern architecture and stunning views of the city.

The museum has also described itself as “the safest place for art during a fire,” detailing in a 2019 article the anti-fire engineering of the Getty Center, which opened in 1997. On Saturday, a spokeswoman for the Getty Center said it has not sustained any damage from the fire. There was an active fire about a half mile away, but the blaze was not threatening the museum’s main buildings.

In the article, the museum noted that its buildings are made of fire-resistant stone, concrete and protected steel. Surrounding it are travertine plazas and well-irrigated landscaping designed to slow down the spread of fire. The roofs are covered with fire-resistant stone aggregate.

Inside, the museum has walls of reinforced concrete or fire-protected steel and automatic fire doors that can trap fires in sealed-off areas. It has an air system designed to maintain a pressure flow to keep smoke from entering the building from outside. And there are sprinklers, but they are activated only as a last resort.

Claire Moses in Santa Ana, Calif., and Jonathan Wolfe in Los Angeles contributed reporting.