A violent fire has been underway since yesterday in Pacific Palisades, a district of Los Angeles. The drought in Southern California as well as the Santa Ana winds blowing at more than 130 km/h favor the spread of the flames which continue to gain ground reaching other neighborhoods, including Eaton Canyon in Pasadena.
The area surrounding Getty Villa, located off Pacific Coast Highway in Pacific Palisades, is also affected. This has sparked concern for the site which houses 44,000 items of Greek, Roman and Etruscan antiquities, dating from 6,500 BC to 400 AD, making up its collection. Katherine E. Fleming, president of the Getty Trust, however, assured in a statement that only the trees and vegetation had been affected, and that the staff and the art collection of the villa were safe.
Location of the Getty Villa located in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood of Los Angeles.
As fire risks are common in California, the Getty villa had already taken preventive measures to deal with this situation, including storing water on site. “Watering was immediately deployed across the entire site on Tuesday morning. The museum galleries and library archives were isolated from smoke by state-of-the-art air handling systems. The double-walled construction of the galleries also provides significant protection for the collections” said Katherine E. Fleming.
Occupied in 1954 by oil tycoon J. Paul Getty, the villa site covers 25 hectares. The building is designed as a life-size replica of the Villa dei Papiri in Herculaneum in southern Italy. Until 1997, it housed the entire collection of J. Paul Getty, before the opening, the same year, of the Getty Center in Brentwood, 20 km from the villa. The Brentwood center had already closed due to fires in its surroundings in 2009, 2017 and 2019.
The Getty Villa will remain closed to the public until at least Monday. Evacuations continue in Los Angeles. So far more than 1,200 hectares have burned.
The Getty Villa located in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood in Los Angeles.
