collection after fire

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Dear colleagues,

it was a big surprise for me to realize how many people are interested in
handling a collection after fire. I was also surprised to learn that it
cost about 3 million Swiss Francs to put our collection back to work. Only
cleaning the specimens took 13 man-years. The volume of the damaged
collection was 15 ship containers, it took two years to get the work
finished. Two geologists were permanently available for consulting to avoid
further damage (down to questions how to interpret labels). What had
actually happened was an explosion of a compressor in the energy center of
the building on Sept. 29, 1990. The subsequent fire spread to the PVC
isolation of the numerous cables and a car wheels that were stored nearby.
Our collection was not subjected to fire but to gases, smoke, and enormous
amounts of soot, full of cloride from the PVC. 

The people who got all the methodology are

the geologist:

Markus Weidmann
Myrthenweg 33
CH-7000 Chur

phone: ++41-81-241822

Please consult him when you have specific problems, not if you want
information arising from just curiosity.


The company (specialised in fire damage) that did the technical things,
experiments, installed the cleaning facilities, and did the job finally:

Reichenberger AG (they abbreviate their name RAG)
Reuss-Strasse 9
CH-6038 Gisikon

phone: ++41-41-910222, fax: ++41-41-913565

The person in charge at RAG was R. Marchel, at their facility in Sargans.


For reference: there is a final report on the cleaning activities (title:
"Die Sanierung der geologischen Sammlung der ETH Zuerich mach dem Brand im
HEZ-Gebaeude vom 29. September 1990", by M. Weidmann). When you have to
make contacts refer to the fire in the geological collection at the HEZ
building, ETH Zuerich, Sept. 29, 1990 (Geologische Sammlung HEZ).

After thinking about it for a while now, really I have seen paleontologic
collections that were covered with dust thicker than the soot on our
specimens. What kind of damage arises from this dust, not only for health
or for the specimens? Primarily the dust shows that there was nobody
looking at the specimens for a long time.

I wish you a safe future, no accidents, and a lot of fun.

Heinz Hilbrecht



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Heinz Hilbrecht
Geological Institute, ETH Zentrum, Sonneggstr. 5, CH-8092 Zuerich, Switzerland
Tel.: ++41-1-63 23676, Fax: ++41-1-63 21080, Internet: Hilbrecht@erdw.ethz.ch
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