Heritage Building Year Built Year of Fire Incident National Museum of Malaysia 1952 1992 High Court Building of Malaysia 1896 1992 Sultan Abu Bakar Royal Museum 1864 1996 Rumah Pak Ali 1876 2003 Ipoh Police Volunteer Mess Hall 1910 2007 Sungai Lembing Heritage Site
Unknown , estimated age above 100 years old
2019
Table 1 : Fire incidents at major heritage buildings
FIRE SAFETY MANAGEMENT DEFICIENCIES (%)
NO EXIT /“ KELUAR ” SIGN LOCKED / OBSTRUCTED FIRE EXIT
NO AUTOMATIC DETECTORS NO EMERGENCY ALARM
NO PUBLIC ADDRESS SYSTEM NO CLOSED-CIRCUIT TELEVISION
NO HOSE REEL SYSTEM NO FIRE DRILL
NO REGULAR RISK ASSESSMENT
NO FIRE SAFETY POLICY NO FIRE CERTIFICATE NO FIRE SAFETY PLAN
Figure 2 : Fire safety management deficiencies for 37 heritage museums ( Source : Salleh & Ahmad , 2009 ).
heritage buildings made from non-combustible materials can be damaged . Fire damage to masonry at a temperature of 200-300 º C would be limited to changes in the masonry ’ s colour . However , once the temperature reach 600- 800 º C , structural strength would be diminished and disintegration due to thermal shock can occur ( Huang et al ., 2009 ). Some of the fires that occurred at major heritage buildings in Malaysia is shown in Table 1 , compiled mostly from the research by Salleh and Ahmad ( 2009 ), with the addition of the most recent tragedy that occurred at Sungai Lembing , where 20 shophouses , 11 single-storey quarters and a library were destroyed , all of which were estimated to be more than 100 years old ( Bernama , 2019b ).
A significant amount of fire protection for heritage buildings can be provided through fire safety management . However , studies have shown that some of the management for heritage buildings in Malaysia show a lack of awareness for proper fire safety management ( Roslan & Said , 2017 ). Salleh and Ahmad ( 2009 ) conducted a study on 37 museums , most of which were built during the colonial period . The study found that 97 % of the museums did not have a fire certificate . Furthermore , it was found that none of the heritage museums had a fire safety plan . The full list of deficiencies found is shown in Figure 2 . A more recent case study by Othuman Mydin et al . ( 2014 ) on three heritage buildings found that there is a lack of training on
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