ARHIVSKI VJESNIK 37. (ZAGREB, 1994.)

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T. Mušnjak, The protection of archival material in war conditions, Arh. vjesn., god. 37 (1994) str. 79-86 be set to repositories, explosive devices and so on). Therefore the measures of enforced security, control and physical and technical protection of archival material must be performed consequently in order to avoid danger of deliberate diversions. The heaviest damages of material or their total destruction will emerge in the case of direct hits during shelling and when an archival building is in the war zone. There is a great chance that fires of different proportions can occur in these situations. INSTRUCTIONS FOR SAVING ARCHIVAL MATERIAL IN THE CASE OF FIRE The best protection against fire is preventive protection. In war conditions the organization of permanent watch is very important because possible fires must be registered, made known and brought under control at the first stage. This is the way bigger disasters can be avoided. If archives and the other institutions possessing material do not have enough watchmen, and that will happen to the all institutions of culture in Croatia (one can count on 30-40% of the present number of the workers in war conditions) they have to get in touch with civil protection units at the territory where the archive is situated and the nearest police stations in order to make arrangements about more frequent visits of their buildings at the time no worker is around. One should also make certain actions to prevent setting fires inside buildings or throwing explosive devices into windows: therefore the strict control of visitors and workers, the installation of screens or shutters on the inner side of windows etc. An extinguishing of fire by water in repositories is not recommended. Therefore all institutions which possess archival material have to get in touch with fire stations or civil protection units which will perform the extinguishing at the war. Together they have to work out different possibilities of extinguishing. Firemen must be warned of consequences appearing when fire is extinguished by water. The most ideal expedient for extinguishing of a fire in archives is halon. Carbon dioxide and powder are second. If the fire in archives is big and water is necessary, we have to beg firemen not to head strong gushes of water at material but to use smaller amounts of water dispersed into drops (the realization of this possibility depends, of course, of the size of the fire). After the fire we shall have to save wet material. There are numerous experiences about ways and possibilities of saving soaked documents and books here and abroad we shall discuss them in the next chapter. 80