The Extraordinary Defense of the Getty Museum Against the L.A. Fires

Flames made it to within 6 feet of the Getty Villa and yet it still stands. Inside the museum’s powerful tools for disaster preparedness.

Under siege by Los Angeles wildfires, the J. Paul Getty Museum is emerging as a near-miraculous beacon of disaster preparedness. Behind the scenes, it’s taking a small army to defend.

Roughly 45 museum workers have been conscripted into revolving, round-the-clock shifts to fan out and patrol the dozens of hilltop acres surrounding the Getty’s two campuses: the older Getty Villa in the Pacific Palisades, which arrays antiquities in a space designed to evoke a Roman country house, and the newer white-stone Getty Center in Brentwood where Vincent van Gogh’s “Irises” is displayed.

The Extraordinary Defense of the Getty Museum Against the L.A. Fires

[Above is I think free link from Wall Steet Journal 1/14/2025.} * Thanks RM