Crisis averted: Northland Heritage NZ staff get emergency training

The emergency ‘conservation station’ set up in front of Te Waimate Mission for Heritage NZ staff to repair water-damaged ‘precious historic books’ - actually modern paperbacks

Planning to deal with future heritage crises in Northland is underway, with recent “emergency training” for heritage staff.

Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga staff in Northland came face to face with a major crisis recently. Fortunately the crisis was purely imaginary as part of a training session designed to equip staff with the skills to deal with the aftermath of a heritage disaster.

The hypothetical situation was a major fire at Te Waimate Mission - New Zealand’s second oldest surviving building- and the challenge of managing collection items that had survived water damage from the sprinkler system being activated and fire service hoses.

”This sort of scenario is not far from reality. Many heritage buildings are protected from fire by sprinkler systems – including those cared for by Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga,” collections manager Belinday Maingay said.

”This means that in a fire, historic buildings can often be prevented from burning to the ground – which is obliviously a very good thing. Buildings are still prone to damage from smoke and water as well as fire fighters doing their job, however – to gain access or for example the breaking of windows in order to let smoke and heat escape, and for collection items in particular to suffer water damage.”

While emergencies on this scale may be rare occurrences, heritage staff do have to be prepared for the aftermath of these situations, Maingay said, and the training session was designed to equip people for the many challenges they may face.

Heritage NZ Pouhere Taonga Northland manager Bill Edwards and Kerikeri Mission Station visitor services coordinator Kellee Rei-Harris carry out some first aid on some water-damaged non-precious books as part of a trainign exercise.

Participants, who included a cross-section of Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga staff employed at Northland properties and the Northland Area Office, completed a hands-on exercise which involved retrieving water-soaked books and other artefacts – in reality non-precious paperbacks and other fake “artefacts”.

The response team then practiced conservation “first aid” techniques including washing items in water baths where appropriate, and following best practice for drying them out. The training session was led by Auckland-based collections care advisor Andor Vince, who has worked in the field of conservation and emergency planning in the United Kingdom and Europe.

“Besides the hands-on skills needed for caring for damaged collection items, Andor also talked about other challenges – including the very real emotional, mental and physical responses experienced by people working in stressful situations like these. He also covered strategies to manage these,” Maingay said.

Practicality was central to his approach, with most of the equipment needed available from any large hardware store. He was also realistic in coaching people where to focus their time and energy.

“It really comes down to planning and preparing for the worst – and ideally working to avoid or minimise the effects these sorts of situations altogether. Hopefully it’s training that we won’t have to draw upon – though if we do, at least we’re prepared.”