Catastrophic fire at national instrument museum in Norway

[AeolianHarp]

Catastrophic fire at national instrument museum in Norway

Commentator Yngve Kvistad in newspaper VG wrote that while “hardly anything is irreplaceable in our time,” the items like hand-crafted string instruments from more than 300 years ago arguably are. A water-damaged piano from the 1700s, or one of Giuseppe Antonio Guarneris’ violins that bured up haven’t only been irreparably damaged “but their entire tone will be silenced and won’t ever return, at least not for another 350 years,” Kvistad wrote. “Norwegian and European music history has been seriously damaged after the fire at Ringve.”

http://www.newsinenglish.no/2015/08/...burned-museum/

How tragic..precious instruments ruined. ...
How on earth did a fire start in a museum?! It's not like anyone would have lit candles or be smoking..

[AeolianHarp]

Just found this update:

Weed burning sparked fire at Ringve Museum

Police and arson investigators believe that a fire that heavily damaged Norway’s Ringve Museum in Trondheim was caused by weed-burning work carried out Monday morning, just before the blaze ignited.

A propane gas unit used to burn weeds outside the historic museum building likely set the building itself on fire, police suggested in a preliminary conclusion after technicians probed the area both Tuesday and Wednesday.

“Now we have especially one employee who’s having a very hard time right now, and who we must take good care of,” museum director Ivar Roger Hansen said at a press conference Wednesday evening. “For us, this has been a tragic event, caused by unfortunate methods for removing weeds. In this case, there was an unfortunate evaluation (of burning weeds) in terms of the distance from building walls and the low height of its foundation.”

The fire that resulted from the “warm work” carried out too close to the museum building was contained to two rooms in the western portion of the museum’s main building. In addition to the destruction of two historical musical instruments, the historic building where they were on display suffered heavy smoke and water damage plus that inflicted by firefighters working to control the fire.

http://www.newsinenglish.no/2015/08/...e-museum-fire/

How careless..

[Decrepit Poster]

indeed.

[Joy]

That is very sad. We have a Musical Museum here with wonderful and beautiful century old instruments and what a shame if that were to happen.