 All right, we will go ahead and get started. It is 3 p.m. Eastern, 9 a.m. Hawaii Standard Time. Thank you all so much for joining today. This is part two of the Foundation for Advancement and Conservations National Heritage Responders webinar series titled, Salvaging Fire Damaged Items. In a moment, I'll put the link to the first webinars recording in the chat. The first webinar focused on health and safety considerations. Today's webinar will focus on object salvage and tomorrow's webinar, the final part of our series will focus on book and paper salvage. Here are the NHR volunteers who have prepared today's content. Malia VanHookalem, Pepper Youngs, Emily Trehu and Megan Breakup-Narvy. I'd also like to give a shout out to all the NHR volunteers who have supported the webinar series for the past few months. It's really great to be able to provide this content. So without further ado, I'm gonna hand it over to Malia and we'll be back at the end for question and answer. Just a quick note too, you can put your questions in the Q&A box. You can also put them in the chat and we'll be sure to look through to pick up any questions that come through. But if you want them to be added to the centralized Q&A location, that's gonna be the Q&A feature. Thank you, Elena. Oh, can you go to the next slide please? Thank you. So this is just an overview of what we're gonna cover today. We have a lot of material to get through. And what we're gonna do is just walk you quickly through the salvage process, but we know that things may be partway through this process and just join us where you are. We don't want you to get discouraged if you haven't matched this process exactly. This presentation is directed at the needs of cultural heritage sites, including the museums, churches and historic schools in Lahaina, but the advice is general enough for anyone to use in salvaging fire damage materials. We will provide a link to all the resources discussed at the very end. We don't wanna distract you with giving you so many links as we're going through next. So this is a salvage webinar and we're just gonna talk about what can be brought out. Next. So the purpose of sharing these images is to illustrate that despite what looks like total loss, there are things that can be saved. It's worthwhile to take your time and carefully plan salvage cultural heritage and precious family heirlooms. Hard materials like ceramics, stone, metals, shells or ivory are likely to be salvages in some state. They may be structurally damaged, such as cracks and stone or only fragments and item composed of mixed materials like metal, hardware from furniture. Other damage in the form of melting, warping, discoloration, embrittlement or cracking will depend on the type of material and exposure. Careful attention will be required to distinguish any of your museum collection fragments from the building debris such as hardware, bricks and nails. This picture is the old La Jaina courthouse which was home to La Jaina Restoration Foundation's Heritage Museum on the second floor. In the La Jaina Art Society Gallery in the basement. We hope that they'll be able to recover at least some of the metal and stone objects. Next, paper, wood, feathers, textiles, taxidermy film and digital collections are at risk of total loss through combustion. If the surface is singed, you won't be able to restore it but if there's a structure intact and maybe important object that can be packaged and you can save it. Even tiny fragments can be cleaned and have the potential for framing in the future. But for now, they need to be well supported and aired out because they have changed structurally from the fire. The La Jaina Restoration Foundation managed several properties including the Wohing Museum and it may be possible for them to recover some stone sculptures from this site. Next, La Jaina Jodo Mission has two large bronze bells which will need cleaning and conservation treatment. They will likely remain on the site and will have to be protected in situ while the debris removal happens. This is a picture of the stone platform and the bell remaining afterward structure has gone. Next, this picture shows how dangerous and difficult it is gonna be to salvage within this space. The large bronze Buddha at La Jaina Jodo Mission is in the back left of the image. It's made it through the fire along with the two bronze bells and their stone platforms. The structure on the right is the columbarium. Next, this photograph of the wooden school sign shows that some unexpected materials have survived the fire because of the location or other production by pure chance. We're hopeful that at least some of these cultural heritage items will be found buried under layers of building materials. La Jaina had a number of basements because of the age of the buildings. And for areas that didn't burn, there are still other risks to be aware of including structural failure from the high winds and mold from putting out the fires and also rain since most of the roofs and doors are gone. Next, we're gonna cover a variety of terms today. We're avoiding overly technical terms but it's important to have a little bit of insight into smokes that in ash which are all damaging can be hazardous. This is different from a forest fire, which is carbon-based. This has all the materials that burned in the fire. So it's a combination of hot gases with smoke and the smoke can be absorbed into the materials and cause chemical damage, surface staining can occur as well. So it is a fine carbon deposits that settle on surfaces that can be fine and dry or sticky and oily. They can easily be ground into surfaces through hand links so effected objects should be handled as little as possible and can become more difficult to remove over time, especially if they're exposed to moisture. And the ash is acidic and it can be abrasive as well as toxic to not only people but also for the materials. So a couple of other terms, porous versus non-porous, it is literally things that have pores. So we think of stones that have a open structure or a good example is ceramics where you have low fire ceramics or ceramics lacking in glaze will be able to absorb moisture and trap debris versus high fired ceramics that have a glaze that forms a protective surface. Other non-porous items might be metals and stone is usually always porous and will absorb material. This association is something that we don't normally think about with damage to collections or cultural heritage items but having the data about your materials is just as important as the materials themselves in a lot of cases because without the information about your precious cultural items or family heirlooms it's hard to interpret them and know their true value in the future. You need those stories to go with them. We're gonna talk about stabilization and it's simply the steps to stop and prevent further damage. We're not gonna get into detailed conservation treatment of materials today. And then finally microclimate is the packaging or think of it as an enclosed environment where you can control temperature and humidity. In the case of packaging, Emily's gonna get into this later in terms of protecting small things like metal items. Next. Now the timeline for this is gonna be a long process. Yeah, so we're on the timeline slide, thank you. The assessment and retrieval can take months or even years and treatment of objects can extend well past that. Take the time to plan and gather supplies first and it may feel slow but it will increase the chance of successful salvage of what is found. Also know that the smoke smell is gonna be a lingering effect that can take a year or more to dissipate even after cleaning things like porous ceramics. And that is it for my slides. I'm gonna turn it over to Pep for now, thank you. All right, everybody. Bear with me if I speak really quickly here, we have a lot to cover and keep in mind that you're gonna be seeing some slides that have a lot of content on them and like I said, I'm gonna be speaking quickly. This video will be reshared afterwards for viewing. You can take screenshots, it'll be on YouTube afterward as well. So don't feel pressure to absorb everything right now. Also like Malia said earlier, I'm gonna present these first entry notes as if you haven't entered your site yet that probably isn't the case for everybody. So please don't feel bad if you have already started that process. Just listen now, take notes and see how you can implement these strategies wherever you are in that process because they're all really important. Next slide please. So like Elena said earlier, before you do any salvage or if you started before you do any more, please watch this first video from the webinar series called Health and Safety Resources. This is already on YouTube, this link is included in the documents that we'll share after this, but they go much deeper into the myriad of safety concerns in this particular response than we're going to now. We're doing just the basics. You need to watch this entire video before responding. Next slide. So your first entry into the site, this has only occurred after the area has been determined to be safe and after re-entry by your local authorities, but just because you've received that clearance from the authorities does not mean that the area is totally free of hazards. It's extremely important to stay alert both for yourself and for the rest of your recovery staff and colleagues for the remaining hazards that are on site, which are numerous. So these are things as simplest tripping hazards from what you saw in these pictures. These are really unstable environments still. Sharp edges, broken glass, exposed material, like rebarting, that's always a puncture hazard. You have unstable furnishings, mold growth for things that have been exposed to water at this point, standing water, and as always, almost most importantly, these heavy contaminants that have been absorbed into most of the surfaces you're going to come across. Next slide, please. Please keep in mind that these health and safety tips, they need to be implemented throughout your entire object recovery process, not just while you're on site, because just because an object has gone, undergone initial stabilization treatment, maybe it's received a first cleaning, maybe it doesn't look too bad, that unfortunately does not mean that it's free from contaminants or quote unquote safe, especially like Malia was talking about for porous objects, things like white pounders and things like that. It's really unfortunate, but we have to be really careful because there are some really dangerous contaminants that are going to be infused in these objects. Your personal protective equipment, your PPE, a few of them are listed below like I said, please watch that first webinar. It goes into way more detail. Some of your most important PPE supplies are going to be your nitrile gloves. Your respirators absolutely for this. You can have a reusable one like what you see in the corner there with replaceable cartridges or you can do some disposable N95 minimum. If you are using a disposable, make sure that you replace that anytime it gets soiled or at minimum every eight hours of use. You're also gonna probably wanna be wearing hard hats because you're in these unstable environments, safety goggles because you're gonna be kicking up a lot of dust and ash, headlamps, even if you're working in daylight, shadows are darker than they seem. You wanna give yourself as much light as possible, disposable Tyvek suits, any sort of clothing covering so that when you leave the site, you're able to take off these, whatever you're wearing that has been the worst contaminated, dispose of that. And then also keep in mind that you will still have remaining materials on your clothes. So you really worry of your process for disengaging from the site, from the environment every day. And also first aid kit, a lot of responses you're gonna encounter are bumps, bruises, little cuts, things like that. So make sure you have first aid kit and people who are trained in first aid to give you that response. Unfortunately in a lot of disasters, a lot of the medical complications and injuries occur after that first disaster has happened and are an impact of the responders themselves who are in that process. We didn't include things like food and water on this list because you really don't wanna be consuming anything near the recovery site. There are too many contaminants. That means you need to also incorporate a lot of breaks into your process so that you can get that nourishment, stay hydrated and things like that. Next slide, please. So again, we're gonna present this as if you haven't entered your site yet. Just incorporate this wherever you are in your process. Ideally, your first entry into the site after the disaster is only an assessment. There should be no recovery or self-performed, which I understand is difficult because you've all been waiting so long to get into these sites. This first assessment should be performed by a very limited initial group of staff rather than inviting everyone on site at once. And it's meant to identify the remaining hazards and establish the scope or your goals of this operation before you have that full team access. You wanna establish your salvage priorities based on this first assessment. And there's one pool listed here from the AIC Field Guide to Emergency Response. This will be linked to at the end of the presentation. This is a rapid collections assessment and it's a really useful tool to help you quickly understand the scope of your salvage operation and help you objectively strategize your recovery efforts in a time where it can be difficult to be objective because it is chaotic and overwhelming emotional. Next slide, please. Documentation, I know this is alongside. It's really important though. So Malia introduced the term dissociation earlier and what that means for recovery is that during an emergency, even if an object survives the initial disaster, it still retains an extremely high risk of loss without that proper salvage documentation. So if you have a high risk of that object, even if it survived the fire losing its identity and so much of its value just based on how it's handled for recovery, et cetera. So documentation is the most important thing that you can do to prevent dissociation as well as it's an important tool for applying for insurance claims afterwards and for applying for recovery grants to help you find this very expensive process. When you're documenting, you want to capture as much information as possible and that's documentation starts from the beginning of your instant until the outcome of every object has been resolved. You wanna create your documentation plan before retrieval starts. So that means if not before your assessment, after you've done your assessment, create your documentation plan, what you're tracking, who's tracking it, what your form is and make sure everyone is trained on how to use it the same way. This involves also making a new simple tracking number system that is used specifically and only for this salvage operation. A lot of your objects may have lost their accession numbers or their tags. Even if it survives, give it that new number anyway to acknowledge that it's part of that process. You also wanna make sure that the staff that you're training on that numbering system that you create a system so that people aren't accidentally double numbering objects that they're working in different documentation teams. You also wanna create a standardized inventory form that's gonna be used for all of your objects. That way you're recording as much information the same types of information for everything you're uncovering. And like I said before, so much of this documentation needs to happen before an object is moved or removed from the site. You wanna document the condition of the space lying in the condition of the damage it has received or things that are on top of it. Once you've moved it, take a new documentation of its new number, things like that. And as highlighted in that blue box below throughout this documentation process, photography is gonna be your most powerful tool. It is fast, it is efficient, and the picture speaks a thousand words. You get so much information from a photograph. Video recordings are also great and photos and videos together, like I said, so important for insurance claims and grant applications. You wanna document as much as possible. I know I keep saying document as much as possible. So object conditions, object locations, after you've moved an object with its new tracking number, labels, there are so many things you can document via photography that can help you speed up that process. It's not a full substitute for written notes but a really important addition to that process. And please remember to back up your photos at least once a day because you don't want to be relying so heavily on digital record keeping and then accidentally lose those records in a day. Next slide, please. Okay, for storage, there are gonna be a lot of different resources for you guys. You wanna reach out to the AIC, Alayna, as well as the Line Restoration Fund and when you was talking about, you need to have your storage strategy set up again before you start removing objects. Your onsite staging area, which is where you pick up an object, in situ, essentially the area, the table you take it to to get an initial condition report, some quick documentation, maybe even an initial stabilizing treatment, but that's not where it stays long-term. Probably shouldn't even stay there overnight depends on your situation. You then have your temporary storage facility, which is more long-term storage. So for your onsite staging area, there's a picture of just an example of a quick pop-up tent. Most importantly, it needs to have good ventilation because like we said, there's a lot of hazards that you guys are gonna be around in the air. You need dry conditions, minimum, you need a roof. So even if it's just a pop-up tent, like an easier spatter than nothing, it needs to be structurally safe for the responders who are working underneath it as well as for the objects that are underneath it. And ideally you have electrical power for things like recharge in cameras. You have your communications with the rest of your crew up. Maybe you have a laptop for record keeping. It's not crucial, just ideal for your onsite staging area. For your temporary storage facility though, this needs to be a site that you have long-term access to. You need to have a contract and a use agreement and a trusting relationship with wherever that facility is, whether it's a partner institution or a contracted business, what have you. And that storage facility needs to have environmental controls. So controls for temperature, light, humidity, pest management, et cetera, because those are the ways you're going to reduce the risk for further damage to these objects. And it needs to have strong security, really controlled access to who gets that space. We included a link at the bottom of the slide because one additional resource that might be available to you is the Bishop Museum. They have said that they are available to help with the salvage process and the storage process. All right, I believe that's the end of my section. Next slide. And last but not least, so your materials, obviously this is a huge list right here broken into retrieval, object cleaning, object packing. Take a screenshot of this later, but you'll notice that lots, some of them are very technical. Others are plenty of things that you can have at home and are really easily accessible. Next slide, Ann can hand it off to our next meeting. Thank you. I am going to start talking to everyone about retrieval. So once you've gathered your materials and fully assessed the scene, you might be ready to begin searching for items that have survived the fire. In the next few slides, I'm going to talk about the retrieval process and how to keep yourself safe while protecting any items that you find. Next slide. Let's start by talking about your team. For every person taking on searching the site for surviving artifacts, someone else should be there to take notes. One person to handle the objects, one person to write down what was found and where and what it looks like and what condition it's in, and maybe another person there taking pictures. Just like Pepper was saying, detailed, detailed documentation and photographs will help later with conservation, with insurance, and will help you when you're trying to figure out what it is that you found. Take pictures before anything is moved so that you have a visual memory of its location in situ. And you can also take more detailed pictures of what it looks like in its condition later as well. After the terrible fire that burned down the National Museum of Brazil, rescuers there discovered thousands of objects in the rubble, including their most precious collection, the skull of Lucia, one of the earliest sets of human remains in the Americas, which had been protected inside of a metal cabinet at the time of the fire. And you might find surprising things that have been preserved as well. After a devastating fire at Clanton Park, a historic house in England, a pocket in the house somehow protected a massive 18th century state bed, and they were able to remove it for salvage with like a silk headboard still intact. So while you're searching, good places to find objects are gonna be inside of basements, inside cabinets and drawers that have withstood the fire, and looking underneath caved in elements that may have provided a pocket of protection. But you need to remember to be extremely cautious for your own safety throughout this process. While basements offer extremely promising places to find items, they're also difficult to access and very dangerous to enter. Please remember that you should always, always prioritize your own safety over everything else. Don't make any structural changes at your site without getting clearance from safety authorities. And you should definitely always be wearing your personal protective equipment throughout the retrieval process. The retrieval process after a fire is more like an archeological dig than anything else. Things might not look familiar anymore, so you might have to come up with a new way to name locations within your site. Archeologists use a grid system, for example, when they're digging in the ground. So, and just like on an archeological site, when you're going through debris that's on your site, it's helpful to use a sieve to distinguish between possible artifacts and the tiles, bricks, and other building materials that are buried in the ash. I've seen some really helpful-looking pictures of people sieving the materials over a wheelbarrow, which seems really handy. It may be slow to do this, but of course you don't wanna miss anything. Keep in mind that items might not look the same after a fire. In addition to being coated and soot, the extreme heat can also change the way things look, and items may have broken into smaller pieces. Next slide, please. Thanks. Let's talk about safe handling practice during retrieval. So, number one, always wear your PPE. This gear is gonna protect you from any possibly hazardous residues and dusts present on the work site. Definitely wear your nitrile gloves, safety glasses, dust masks, or N95s and disposable coveralls. Number two, handle objects as little as possible. Look without touching before you pick something up in order to identify any weak spots to avoid. Look for possibly flaking or powdery surfaces. If the object is porous, every time you touch it, you'll drive soot further into the pores, making it more difficult to clean later. Number three, avoid areas of potential weakness. Don't lift objects by the handles or any other projecting area, because these are often the weakest part of the object. It's best to lift from the bottom, use both hands, and gently cradle the object. Other good standard object handling techniques are important now too. Don't wear big bulky jewelry, and if you have long hair, have it tied up away from the object. Next slide. Number four, focus on one object at a time and its specific handling needs, like flaking paint, for example. This will allow you to focus on the object and avoid accidents. Think about your whole route before you even pick up an object. For example, you should always know where you're gonna put an object down before you pick it up. Number five, ask for help. If the item is too big, bulky, or awkward, get help with lifting it and make sure your path is clear. It's always good to have someone walking beside you to help with things just in case. Number six, keep a designated object area. This area should be separate from any writing, areas with pens or ink, and separate from any food or drink for your safety and for the object safety. Next slide. Let's talk through an object move. Remember to only move objects when necessary. The less we handle something, the less likely we are to damage something. We're assuming that right now, all the things that we come across are gonna be extra fragile and probably covered in abrasive, staining soot. So we're trying to touch things as little as possible. We've planned our route and we've cleared out a designated place for the object after the move. During the move, if possible, we wanna use trays and bins to carry objects rather than just using our hands. Cushion items with padding material and support loose parts. Padding material can be whatever you have on hand at this point. It doesn't have to be acid-free tissue or museum quality foam. Paper towels and cotton rags make great padding materials. Try to separate smaller items so that they're not rubbing against each other. Don't allow components of an object to stick outside the container because that puts it at risk of getting knocked and damaged. When you have something that's really big and heavy, don't push or drag it, get help. Make sure that wherever you've moved things, they're placed in a way that they can be easily reached without disturbing other items. If damage occurs during the move, record it now. You wanna know when the damage took place and how it happened. This is really important for keeping track of the timeline of each item. Next slide. Things that are too large to move. Leave them in place and try to erect temporary structures around them to provide some protection. These structures like the plywood box I have pictured here provide a double purpose. They also communicate to people that there's something important underneath this box and they also protect it from accidental damage. So while construction workers are out there clearing away rubble after salvage has taken place, they know not to clear away the plywood box and the thing underneath it. If you're leaving things in place on site, you should definitely be thinking right now about how you're gonna mark it and protect it so that it will stay safe as the rubble is cleared away over the coming months. If you find anything with painted surfaces while you're doing your recovery, you should try to keep things flat because paint is very delicate and might be lost if you transport it vertically. If you find a textile or anything sort of similar, something that would normally be pretty floppy, keep in mind that it might be a lot more brittle after the fire. Try not to fold or bend these materials. They can be transported on boards or on slings made out of cotton sheets. If you need to fold them, pat out the folds really generously. Next slide. I'm gonna pivot a little bit and talk about the difference between dry, damp and wet things when you find them on site. I'm gonna assume that you know what's dry, but I'm gonna clarify between damp and wet. When we say wet, we mean fully saturated, sitting in standing water. Everything else is damp. The rule of thumb that I have is to package and store objects in similar conditions to what they were found or to slowly acclimate them to the conditions in which they will be stored. We're gonna talk more about storage later, but first, when you're first finding things, if it's dry, obviously you're gonna keep it dry. If it's damp, it's probably fine to slowly dry it out. I recommend air drying things. Set it out somewhere with absorbent materials that you regularly swap out with gently circulating air to prevent mold growth. This should work for most materials. We will be providing our slides with more details on specific material types and how to dry them, which you can look at, because there are some exceptions. Next slide. Now what to do when you find wet objects? If you're dealing with fully saturated materials, I recommend you consult with a conservator as soon as possible because the next step depends on the material type. Some materials can be safely air dried. Some will need to be kept wet until they can be seen by a specialist and still others can be safely frozen and dealt with later. If you find wet materials, you can keep materials wet. You can put them in a container with clean water and store them in a cool, dark place until you contact a conservator. The National Heritage Responders Helpline is one place you can reach out to for help, but we will also be giving you more information about how to contact a local conservator later in this presentation. Next slide. Now I'm gonna cover triage and sorting what you found. Triage is important so that you can focus your energy on stabilizing the most important and the most vulnerable items that you've recovered first. For example, if you found the most important item in your collection, you're gonna wanna prioritize it above other things that you found. Similarly, something that is damp will need attention before something that is dry in order to prevent mold growth or other forms of damage. While you're triaging, you'll also wanna sort what you found to make it easier to stabilize and pack up the collections in the next stage of recovery. So separate items that are wet, damp, and dry, and separate items by material type to make them easier to pack and treat. However, I recommend keeping associated materials together. So say you have an axe that has come apart, you have a wood component and a metal component. I recommend keeping these two pieces together to prevent dissociation. I wanna reiterate how important documentation is. It's so, so important to keep track of every item, what condition it's in, and what it looks like. At this point, make sure everything has an inventory number, make sure that different teams aren't double-numbering items, photograph things from as many angles as possible, and take the following notes for each item. What it is, where it was, where it's going, and what's wrong with it. And now I'm gonna pass it on to our next speaker. All right, hi, everyone. So in this section, I'm gonna be demonstrating a few cleaning techniques that can be used to stabilize objects enough for packaging until they can be assessed by a conservator. I don't have slides showing for this, but everything I say will be on slides in the PDF that we share afterwards. So I'm gonna start with vacuuming, and you're gonna wanna make sure that you have a vacuum with a HEPA filter. Vacuum from down here, and just the simple round nozzle, no floor attachments or anything like that. And you're gonna wanna cover your nozzle with some sort of mesh, like a mesh fabric. So tool, I've got a couple of pieces of tool here, or cheesecloth is also an option that works really well. And you just cut a little square, put it over the nozzle and you can secure it with blue tape. And the reason you wanna do that is in case the object you're vacuuming has any loose or friable parts, they're not gonna get sucked into the vacuum. They'll stay on the mesh and you can bag them and store them with the object. And maybe in the future, they can be reattached. So once you have your object, you're gonna wanna determine if it's porous or non porous, like we mentioned before. So right here, I have a laser ceramic tile, so that's non porous. And I have a wooden owl, which is porous. And the technique is gonna differ based on that characteristic. So for porous materials, you're not gonna wanna use brushes or anything, you just need to hold the vacuum as close as you can to the surface without touching the object and just move slowly across the surface, just turning the object and just you're gonna, I keep going, sometimes it's hard to see when you're not using brushes if anything is actually lifting, but it's an important first step to make sure that you're not driving anything further into the pores. Oh, Elena, is the iPad being shared as the screen? Yes, the iPad is pinned. Let's see, can someone write in the chat if they're seeing Emily's demonstration? No, okay, let's see here. Okay, can you all see Emily now? No, okay, do you all see the gallery view? That's okay, I can switch to my other camera and just do a smaller field demonstration. So what I was saying was, let's see, Elena, can you now just pin my laptop? Yeah, your pen to your laptop is not... Okay, okay, so sorry, this was what you would have been seeing with the other camera. So like I was saying, I've got the glazed ceramic tile and the wooden owl, which is shedding a lot of dirt. Also, I just wanna say that these are not toxic ash that is on these objects, otherwise I would be wearing N95 and goggles, but for this gloves, I'm wearing my lab coat. So this is what I was talking about with the mesh on the nozzle of the vacuum. And like I said, tool, the fabric or cheesecloth is good for this and you just fold it over the nozzle and tape it. So with the porous materials, without using a brush, you're just gonna wanna hold the nozzle as close to the objects as you can and move it along slowly. Whereas with non porous material, you can use a brush. And what you're gonna do is use the brush to guide the debris into the nozzle. So you always hold it, one in each hand and you brush into the nozzle. One thing that is a useful tip is that clean makeup brushes are very good for this. So brand new ones will be clean and they're really soft because they're for your skin. And so they're an easily accessible type of brush. And they come in a lot of different sizes. So after doing the initial vacuuming of something like the owl, which has lots of little crevices, you can use a very specialized brush to target certain areas. Next, I will talk about cleaning with smoke sponge. And with the sponge, you can use that for any surface, except for those that are pigmented or you can see that they're already flaking. It's sold in a block like this. It's sometimes called chemical sponge or soot sponge or smoke sponge. They're available for most hardware stores. And it's a vulcanized rubber that has a lot of little pores which pick up debris and trap it inside the sponge instead of on the surface of your objects. And to use it, you wanna cut it into little cubes about this size. So that you have, you're maximizing the surface area but you can also hold on to it. And the important thing to know about using it is that you don't wanna rub or wipe with it. You just dab the surface or roll gently and it'll pick up debris. And you can see that my sponge is turning gray and I'm gonna change which side I'm using as it turns gray. And once the whole thing is gray, I'll just throw it away and switch to a new sponge. It's also useful because you can trim it to the exact size you need. So like this one, I've trimmed a thin edge so that you could get under a crevice or like the rim of an object. And the last thing I'm gonna talk about is wet cleaning. Now this, you only wanna use on non-porous material and I'll use this tile to demonstrate. And you wanna use clean cotton. So cotton pads, Webril is the brand that we use most in conservation and is fairly easily available. And you can just tear off a section of pad, damp with a little bit of water and then lot the surface. Again, you don't wanna wipe or rub because of the abrasive nature of ash and soot. You could just be causing more scratches on the surface of the object. And one thing that's useful is if you have access, again, I'm just gonna dispose of that. If you have access to ethanol, doing a 50-50 mix of ethanol and clean water helps speed up the evaporation time of your solution and it reduces streaks and splotchy and that might be left behind. And it can also be useful to pick up any debris that's not necessarily water soluble. So Elena, we can switch back to the slides now. So for anything beyond that sort of surface level cleaning, we suggest that you try to contact a conservator and the American Institute of Conservation has a very helpful tool online where you can put in a search based on what materials you're looking for advice about and your location. And some of those issues that you might be seeing are wet cleaning of porous materials, smoke staining in any material, a flaking loose or unstable surface, and then anything that has a painted or pigmented surface. Next slide, please. So we're gonna move on to packing. Next slide. And it's important to think about packing, not just as an afterthought. In the long timeline of these kinds of recovery processes, people often think that, oh, we're just storing this and then we'll get back to it soon. And then the object can stay in its initial packaging for sometimes years. And you wanna make sure that your packaging isn't gonna accidentally cause any further damage. So if you're trying to meet these five goals, then your packaging will be efficient. And then the goals of the packaging are mostly to reduce excessive handling and providing support to the objects and then also to protect it from the environment. Next slide, please. So rather than trying to hit any specific benchmarks that might be just unrealistic, it's good to just try to avoid the most common mistakes. And if you do, your packaging will meet the five goals on the previous slide. So these are some of the common pitfalls that people face in packaging. The first one relates to what Megan was saying about in general, not packaging different materials together, unless it's one object with multiple materials in it. The second one refers to having enough padding between the container and the object and between objects within the same container. Points three through six all relate to sometimes people are overeager with their packaging and they actually end up harming their objects by over-packaging them. You want it to be as simple as possible so that you can clearly see what's in any container. It's evident how to remove things from the container. Nothing gets accidentally crushed or missed within layers of packaging. You wanna make sure that you label all of your packages on the outside and preferably can include an inventory inside a box if there's multiple objects within it. And importantly, you wanna use materials that aren't gonna degrade over time and cause further damage to your object. Next slide. So these in the middle are some everyday objects that people often use and then end up causing harm. And in the blue column are some examples of the archival alternatives. I've put in the plastic types that are the most stable for things like plastic bags and boxes. But if you can't find that information, the rule of thumb is anything that's safe for food storage is probably gonna be safe to store your objects. Next slide, please. So now we'll just go through some examples of packaging for different types of objects. For non-metal objects, larger things can just get their own box. And like Megan mentioned earlier, you wanna make sure that it's not overhanging the edges of the box or sticking up higher than the rim. And it can just be supported right inside with things like acid-free tissue or museum foam, or if you can't find those, just clean, unbleached, undyed cotton. And this ceramic is a good example. It's clearly contained, the handle is supported and clearly visible so that no one's gonna accidentally pick it up by the handle. And then another thing about this sort of packaging is that it's easily adaptable for transport. All you have to do is add another layer of tissue on top and the lid and your object is safe to move. In the case of porous materials that will have trapped the smoke odor, if you're closing up the packaging, it's a good idea to include air purifying materials. So that's gonna be things like activated charcoal or zeolite filters. And they're actually pretty easy to find because they're often sold as pads at pet stores as filters for cat litter. But they do tend to shed and leave residue behind. So you wanna make sure it's contained in an open bag within the packaging for the object so that it's not shedding onto the object but still allows air exchange with the object. Next slide, please. For smaller objects that you wanna keep marked individually, there are two different methods that we recommend. One is using small Ziploc bags that allow the object to be visible and adding something like a thin layer of acid-free tissue or a thin foam, both pads the object and makes the bag rigid so that they can be stood up and aligned in a box so that they can be easily filed through and you can have the object visible on one side and the label visible on the other. And if you are able to access museum quality foam, then doing something like in the bottom picture with cutouts is a really good way to make sure that the objects are safe and not bumping into each other within a container and adding those little finger cutouts is a good way of indicating handling advice for the next person who opens the box, you can put the cutouts where you know it's safe to handle the object. And with the foam, you can also do layers if it's in a box, which is a good way of maximizing space. Next slide, please. Now, all those examples I talked about before for non-metals and the reason metals are different is that it is extremely important to keep them as dry as possible as moisture is one of the main components that causes corrosion. So actually supporting the objects is gonna be similar, doing cutouts and the same bagging technique, but you're gonna wanna make sure that you include a desiccant inside of a well-sealed container. So things like well-sealed food storage containers are really good for this. And then you create your padding the same way and leave space for a desiccant. The most common one we use is silica gel and it can be bought in pre-made sachets that will give you directions on how often to replace them or you can buy it loose, which is often color indicating. So the gel itself changes colors when it needs to be replaced and you can make your own sachets by filling plastic bags, but you're gonna wanna make sure that the bags are perforated to allow air exchange within the sealed box to keep the humidity down. With larger metal objects that it's difficult to find a box to fit them or they're too large to move, just try to find as cool and dry a storage place for them as possible and for transport patting them with things like cushions and I've even seen mattresses used to pad large metal objects for transport. And for things like the Buddha or the bell that Malia showed in her slides earlier, that's where setting up a temporary shelter to keep them as dry as possible is gonna be really important. Next slide please. Flat objects, it's gonna be really important to support them well. So using things like acid-free board as a support, one option to make the board less slippery is using a clean brushed cotton again, unbleached and undyed to wrap the board and it just keeps things gripped on the surface. And then you can slide a board like that into a polyethylene bag for transport and you can include the air purifying materials inside of a bag like that as well. Next slide please. For wet storage, there are three points that you really wanna remember. The first is that if you're putting multiple objects into a bucket of water, they're gonna move around so you can secure them individually in labeled bags with waterproof tags or if it's one object with multiple components, you can make sure they stay together by keeping them in a bag and perforating the bag so that the water fills the whole environment. The second thing to consider is weight. A plastic box filled with water is gonna get really heavy. So just make sure you're keeping that in mind as you're filling boxes on the ground that you're gonna have to move or stack them and it's hard to do if it gets too heavy and it's also hard to control leaking if it gets too heavy. And the third point is keeping any wet storage in a cool dark place to prevent biological activity. Okay, next slide. And just a few points about transporting your materials between spaces. So when they go from your temporary salvage tent on site to a more long-term storage space, you're gonna wanna make sure that you don't open the containers for at least 24 hours. That just gives the, it gives the environment within the container time to equilibrate with that of the new storage space. And next slide. So these are some more resources and Malia's gonna put in the chat, the Google Doc with all the links that we mentioned. And so for more information, you can see any of those. Next slide, please. And we also just wanted to thank all these people who offered a lot of advice and shared their own experiences with fire damaged materials with us. And next slide, please. So we're not gonna talk through all of these now so that we have time for questions, but in the PDF of the PowerPoint, Malia, if you just go to the next slide, just as an example, there's material-specific guidelines on what to do if your material is dry, damp, or wet and the basic cleaning techniques. So that's it. Thank you. If anybody has any questions, feel free to put them in the chat or in the Q&A box. I did see one question come in, Emily, when you were doing your demonstration about the soot sponges. Can those be washed and reused? Emily, you're muted. Sorry, I wouldn't, I would say just dispose of them. You're using such small pieces and you're picking up material that could be hazardous, so it's good to just dispose of it when you're done. But they're not that expensive, the blocks, so they're a pretty good resource. Thank you. Not seeing any other questions just yet, but we can give it a minute or two. I'm gonna tap for Margaret. There's a National Heritage Responder and also a textile conservator, so adding some good tips there. Yes, absolutely. I'll just share a couple announcements while we wait to see if any other questions come in. Our final webinar is going to be tomorrow at 9 a.m. Hawaii Standard Time or 3 p.m. Eastern Time. So that will be focused on book and paper material salvage and will similarly be an hour and a half long block, but maybe shorter depending on how long the program goes. Oh, we do have a question here from Kimberly Fluke. Do you think that FEMA slash EPA will allow screening? It seems that they would be concerned with stirring up toxic dust in the atmosphere. I guess I'll handle that one because I've been on some of the same calls. And I know that they have allowed other organizations to come in, private non-profit, non-government organizations to come in and do some screening for private properties. I know it's, I would think that it's gonna be discouraged, but there's no indication that will be prohibited at this point. I would also note that you would only be wearing your full PPE in that scenario, including an N95 or cartridge respirator, but definitely follow the advice of whatever FEMA person is in control for your area. Thank you both. At the same time, I would follow the safety guidelines and wear your PPE, but also you have to advocate for the needs of cultural heritage in these disasters. And FEMA doesn't always know what you need to do to recover your collections. So you might have to advocate for your need to screen and sieve for the remains of your artifacts. So I just wanted to add that. Thanks, Megan. All right, well, I guess we can wrap up. Just like the webinar last week, this webinar recording will be available on YouTube later today. So look out for that link. And I will include in the recording the PDF to all of the resources and the slides that all of our presenters mentioned today. So thank you again to our presenters and to our National Heritage Responders volunteers who assisted with today's program. Thanks for attending.