About 2,749 miles, three countries, and a sea separate Kyoto, Japan, and Thimphu, Bhutan. The countries’ languages are different, and so are their histories.
But when it comes to their heritage buildings, both nations have one common enemy: Fire.
And to help prevent fire hazards, there’s a lot Bhutan can learn from Japan’s experience.
To that end, a Bhutanese delegation visited Tokyo and Kyoto last year to attend the Resilient Cultural Heritage and Tourism Technical Deep Dive to learn best practices on risk preparedness and mitigation, and apply them to Bhutan’s context.
Such knowledge is critical as Bhutan’s communities live in and around great heritage sites.
Vernacular architecture, lhakhangs (temples), and dzongs (fortresses), as well as nangtens (interior cultural heritage assets such as paintings, sculptures, and carvings), are integral to daily life and particularly vulnerable to fire. In 1998, a fire destroyed the 7th-century Taktshang monastery, known as the Tiger’s Nest. More recently in 2012, the iconic 16th-century Wangduephodrang Dzong was burnt down.
However, fire is just one of the many hazards threatening Bhutan’s cultural heritage.
The 2009 and 2011 earthquakes caused physical losses –mainly in lhakhangs and dzongs– estimated respectively to $13.5 million and nearly $7 million. In 2014 and 2017, windstorms blew away several roofs of Chorten Nyingpo Lhakhang in Kabesa, Punakha, a Designated Heritage Site.
As highlighted during the workshop, the city of Kyoto provides excellent insights into how it integrated firefighting measures to conserve and maintain its wooden heritage sites .
For instance, the owners of the Kiyomizu-dera Temple, which was rebuilt multiple times, installed disaster-prevention devices to protect the buildings. These include a firefighting water system that can hold 500 tons of water, a fiber optic system to keep people away but also connected with a fire alarm, and a lightning prevention system.
Also, the local community plays an important role. In case of an emergency, trained neighbors and store owners are prepared to assist at the temple. Drills are organized twice a year as well as regular training to use fire extinguishers.
To compensate for their services, the temple gives away rainwater collected through a water supply system to the community.
Community members also share their experiences and knowledge with the new generations.
As such, workshop participants started developing some principles and practices to improve the resilience of Bhutanese cultural heritage.
Specifically, they underscored the lack of awareness and information as a key challenge.
And overall, a critical lesson from Japan is to better integrate disaster risk management and cultural heritage conservation by promoting collaborations between agencies.
This would help better understand and identify risks as well as each other’s roles in case of emergency and, ultimately, pave the way for the design and implementation of culturally-informed measures to reduce and manage risks.
In that sense, the workshop organized in Bhutan by the Division for Conservation of Heritage Sites ( DCHS - DoC) helped boost cooperation between the Department of Disaster Management ( DDM), the Fire Service Division from of the Royal Bhutan Police ( RBP), Dzongkhag Disaster Management Committee ( DDMC), De-Suung (Guardians of Peace), and more.
Thanks to this learning experience, Bhutan is setting itself as an international reference for the protection of cultural heritage sites from disasters.
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