Ensuring Sustainable Preservation: Fire Protection of Timber Sacral Buildings in Eastern Slovakia

Michal Huliak and Iveta Marková ()
Additional contact information
Michal Huliak: Department of Fire Engineering, Faculty of Security Engineering, University of Žilina, 01032 Žilina, Slovakia
Iveta Marková: Department of Fire Engineering, Faculty of Security Engineering, University of Žilina, 01032 Žilina, Slovakia

Sustainability, 2025, vol. 17, issue 6, 1-25

Abstract: Timber heritage buildings reflect the character and specifics of the region in which they are located and in which they were built. They form part of memory and history, preserving the traditions and culture of a community. The fact that their building material is timber makes them more susceptible to fire. The purpose of the article is to evaluate the current state of fire protection of timber heritage buildings. Having established this status, we will analyze the results and list the main problems we have identified. We will propose measures to reduce the risk of fire occurrence and spread. For the purposes of our research, we followed the developed methodologies for fire protection assessment of heritage buildings. We developed a checklist which we used for data collection. We analyzed the results, and then used synthesis to look for areas of correlation between the different buildings. The most common shortcomings in the fire protection of sacral timber buildings are the absence of fire protection coatings, missing or non-functioning electric fire alarms, and the absence of a stable fire extinguishing system. The presence of combustible materials in the building or its immediate vicinity, water sources, access roads or the travel time of the fire brigade to the building were also problematic. The main challenge to increasing fire protection of heritage timber buildings in Slovakia is the lack of funding. Without funds, it will not be possible to equip the buildings with fire-fighting equipment and the sustainability of these objects for future generations will not be possible.

Keywords: fire safety; fire protection; ancient timber; timber churches; heritage building; sustainability (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/17/6/2429/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/17/6/2429/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:17:y:2025:i:6:p:2429-:d:1609198

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().