A method for small-scale exposure of radiative heating followed by water exposure has been developed to imitate the scenario of a church fire with water extinguishing.

Six textiles have been evaluated by their heat and water properties for fire-protection of cultural historic objects. The overall conclusion for each textile shows that two were ranked as good, three as intermediate and one as poor. The similarity of the two materials ranked as “good” is an aluminium layer on the exposed side.

Combined with the results from BraTeK part 1 and 2 (NIKU reports), the conclusions from this report may support the owners’ choice of fire-protective textiles.

The study is funded by the Directorate for Cultural Heritage in Norway (Riksantikvaren) and the Confederation of Churches and Nonprofits (Hovedorganisasjonen KA). Project manager has been NIKU. Photo by Mona Hauglid

You may find the full report (pdf) here.