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How museums fight fires, floods and climate change

As flames lit up Bel-Air, the thousands of works of art in the Getty Center hung unperturbed. Nobody did anything to them. They didn't have to.

By John Gittelsohn | Updated on December 18, 2017
The Getty Center is seen after a wildfire swept through Los Angeles' Bel-Air neighborhood on Wednesday, Dec. 6, 2017. The Getty Center, the $1 billion home to the J. Paul Getty Museum and related organizations, stands on the west side of Sepulveda Pass. The fire did not immediately cross the wide expanse of the pass to the Getty side, but if it had, the facility is prepared. (AP Photo/Reed Saxon)

(Bloomberg) — As flames lit up the hills just across the freeway, torching mansions, the thousands of works of art in the Getty Center hung unperturbed. Nobody did anything to them. They didn’t have to.

Related: California Dept. of Insurance issues formal notice about wildfire claims

The Getty’s bucolic setting on 750 acres of forested hills above Los Angeles would appear to expose it to the kinds of infernos still charring huge swaths of Southern California. But its setting is by design, part of an elaborate system of fireproofing to shield irreplaceable art as blazes bred by climate change pose a growing threat.

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