Museum Staff Scrambling to Clean Up After Fire

Los Angeles County Museum of Art personnel were scrambling to clean carpets and change air-conditioner filters Friday in preparation for today’s reopening of a popular show of Latino artworks that was closed after a fire in a basement corridor.

No art was damaged in Thursday’s fire in the Robert O. Anderson Building, but the wing was closed and most of the pieces on display were draped in plastic sheets in case any potentially harmful soot remained in the air, said Ron Bratton, deputy director of the museum.

Members of the museum’s conservation staff placed sheets of white paper on the floors of the four-story building to gauge how many particles were circulating in the galleries.

“There are still a few specks of soot floating around, but it’s all extremely minimal,” said Pieter Meyers, head of conservation for the museum.

Bratton said he was “90% sure” the reopening of “Hispanic Art in the United States,” featuring the work of 30 artists, would take place as scheduled. The show closes Sunday.

Could Reopen Tuesday

He said he hoped the upper floors, where selections from the museum’s collection of 20th-Century art are displayed, could reopen Tuesday.

The rest of the museum, including the Frances and Armand Hammer Building, where an exhibition of the paintings of Georgia O’Keeffe has been drawing large crowds, was open Friday.

Although officials were concerned that steam generated from the fire’s intense heat would raise the moisture levels in the Anderson galleries, the relative humidity rose only to 53%, “which is pretty close to ideal,” Bratton said.

No cause has yet been determined for the blaze, a Fire Department spokesman said. An arson team was sent to the scene Thursday.

The fire was brought under control in half an hour after two firefighters who happened to be working as fire marshals at the May Co. across the street rushed to the museum and held the blaze at bay until help arrived. As many as 2,000 visitors, volunteers and employees were evacuated from the museum.

Other Factors Cited

Museum officials said two other factors helped spare the artworks: The fire occurred in a 2-year-old building with multiple fire doors and steel floors; and the staff underwent a disaster preparedness drill as recently as March 15.

In addition to enabling them to efficiently remove people from the building, the drill alerted them to the need to close fire doors and swiftly cover all artworks except certain pieces, like an aluminum and fiberglass honeycomb sculpture by Frank Stella, that can be easily cleaned, officials said.

“Everything worked the way it was supposed to work,” Meyers said.

Almost immediately, a team of six conservation workers inspected the artwork in the Anderson Building to ensure that no damage had occurred, he said.

Bratton said the fire did char some art supplies used by the museum’s education staff and some “rather routine” files from the ancient art department that were being stored in the Anderson Building’s basement.