[KS] Naksansa tragedy & fire prevention in temples

[Pai hyungil]

Dear Members,
The TV news and several newspaper articles have pointed out the dire lack of a systematic fire prevention not to mention other technological equipment such as video cameras or alarm systems that would have prevented such natural disasters or man-made kind in the protection of Korean cultural properties. As far as I am aware in my research on Korean cultural properties, the budget, coordination efforts as well expert advice needed to maintain such infra-structure is lacking for the majority of temples that are  located deep in the mountainous areas . 
 South Korea since 1961 foundation of the Office of Cultural Properties and the promulgation of cultural properties laws have taken pride in the government legislation and administration of national treasures/pomul  (kukbo/pomul), Sajok (historical sites), natural monuments (chonnyon kinnyomul) as well buried cultural properties. However, after more than forty years of elaborate hierchichal state controlled management like many things in the ROK, in fact the system has become so bureaucratically complex with many ranks of remains, jurisdiction conflicts (such as seperate Chibang munhwajae categories) and conflicting issues (preservation vs tourist development that might damage the environment), in my opinion, many kinds of remains have fallen in between the cracks. As far as I am aware, in my travels around Korea except for the most prominent World Heritage sites (Haeinsa, Sokkuram, Pulguksa, Chongmyo, Changgyong-won), much visited national museums, and famous palaces /tourist
 places, most Korean sites do not have basic anti-looting (24 security cameras/alarm system), or anti-disaster or evacuation plans in place.Of if they do, it is mostly on paper. 
Two nights ago, a TV reporter who made random temple visits interviewed some monks and they all agreed that something needs to be done and mentioned the case of Songgwangsa which had indeed had fires before and still lack the number of sprinklers necessary for such a huge temple complex. 
Hyung Il Pai
Korea Foundation Research Fellow 04-5
 Cedar Bough Blomberg <umyang at gmail.com> wrote:Johanna,

When visiting Korean Buddhist temples it is unusual to find a large
fire break between the temple and the surrounding forest. Often there
are trees inside and outside the temple walls, with little or no break
in the foliage. The only temples I can think of that have a clearing
360 degrees around the temple have been newly constructed. There are
red fire extinguishers dotting all the temples, but in a case like
this they would not have been enough. I have never seen a sprinkler
system in a temple, either, though I wouldn't be too surprised if they
are subtly hidden in some newer buildings, at some temples.

This is a terrible tragedy for the Buddhist community and for the
Korean people, and I'm not sure how constructive it would be to start
pointing fingers at the Korean Ministry of Culture due to lack of
regulations (or perhaps enforcement) of laws related to fire
prevention. The fire fighting (they left Naksansa with the fire
"under control" to go fight another part of the fire, why couldn't
they have spent a little more time to get the fire out?) and the
equipment available (for example, only two copters that could fly in
the wind strength on Tuesday, and most forest fires are worsened by
wind conditions) were largely responsible for this loss. I , for one,
hope that this leads to faster and more effective fire-fighting
responses. It's been suggested that Korea could even rent or share
equipment with other nations that do not have their high fire season
in the spring. I hope that innovative ideas like this continue to be
suggested and adopted. I also hope other temples plan for evacuation
of portable treasures (like the Buddha image at Naksansa which was
stored away safely when the fire first looked threatening).

Ultimately, I think that taking trees out of/away from Korean Buddhist
temples would change the temples into something else. There is risk
inherent in having the trees there, but not having them there, in my
opinion, would be worse.




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