Pacific Palisades Fire reaches Getty Villa
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It appears that the collection is safe for now, thanks to some preemptive mitigation efforts, but this is still pretty scary:
Amid the devastating and fast-moving fire in Pacific Palisades, the grounds of the Getty Villa have caught fire, the museum confirmed Tuesday.
Fire officials said that trees and brush were ablaze and that flames were approaching structures, but the museum said the Villa and its art had been spared so far. A video on the social media platform X showed the flames approaching the Villa de Leon, a historic home near the museum’s driveway entrance on Pacific Coast Highway.
“Fortunately, Getty had made extensive efforts to clear brush from the surrounding area as part of its fire mitigation efforts throughout the year,” Katherine E. Fleming, president and chief executive of the J. Paul Getty Trust, said in a statement. “Some trees and vegetation on site have burned, but staff and the collection remain safe.”
Fleming noted protection measures such as water stored on site, irrigation to wet the grounds, double-walled construction and air-handling systems to seal the galleries and library archives from smoke.
Built in 1954 by oil tycoon J. Paul Getty and opened as a museum in 1974, the 64-acre Getty Villa houses more than 44,000 objects, including priceless antiquities — Roman, Greek and Etruscan relics dating from 6,500 BC to AD 400. The most prized piece in the collection is “Statue of a Victorious Youth,” circa 300-100 BC, also known as “The Getty Bronze.” Other important works include the Roman “Lansdowne Herakles,” which dates to about AD 175, and the Cycladic “Male Harp Player,” 2700-2300 BC.
Numerous residents, needless to say, aren’t so lucky:
A fast-moving fire has forced more than 30,000 residents to evacuate from the Pacific Palisades area of Los Angeles amid “life-threatening and destructive” winds.
The fire, which broke out Tuesday morning at about 10:30 a.m. local time, was burning in the Pacific Palisades Highlands community. In just hours, the blaze grew to nearly 3,000 acres, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CalFire). It has been fueled by a combination of dry conditions and powerful winds, which are likely to strengthen further overnight.
It’s a serious problem that will get a lot worse before it gets better.