Armed with kitty litter, cotton swabs, and vulcanized-rubber sponges, a half-dozen graduate students from the University of Texas at Austin set up shop last month in the public library of this Central Texas town that was still smoldering from wildfires that consumed more than 1,500 homes.
The budding conservators from the School of Information were hoping that the skills they had learned mending and preserving centuries-old documents would breathe new life into photos and books pulled from the rubble.
As they waited for residents to arrive with their damaged papers, the students showed local relief workers how to pick up a wet paper by submerging it in a shallow plastic tray filled with water, covering it with a polyester cloth until it adheres, and then gently lifting it. They demonstrated how cat litter removes smoky smells from artifacts and how freezing wet books prevents mold from growing.
Virginia Luehrsen, a doctoral student in information studies, spent part of last semester mending tears and lifting dirt from an 1804 reprint of the Magna Carta. In Bastrop, she tackled a different kind of recovery, helping a security guard polish soot off a blackened Dallas Cowboys ring—one of the few items that survived when his house shot up in flames last month.
During the workshop, Ms. Luehrsen learned that because of the intensity of the wind-fanned fire, which scorched 34,000 acres of parched pine forest, little remained in the homes in its path.
“The flames melted cars and left nothing but rubble. All the firefighters could do was stand back and let the houses burn,” Gene Crick, a local technology official and relief worker, told the students.
But he said some houses on the perimeter of the fire, where residents were just starting to return, probably had salvageable items.
Karen L. Pavelka, the School of Information lecturer who organized the workshop, said she watched on the local news as a couple returned to their charred home, opened a metal file drawer, and doused the still smoldering contents with water. “I wanted to get the word out not to throw these things out,” Ms. Pavelka said. “We know how to handle wet and burned paper. Let us try to help you.”
When no other residents showed up, Ms. Pavelka, who has assisted restoration efforts in post-Katrina New Orleans and in post-earthquake Haiti, said timing the wildfire workshop was tricky. Too early, and people who had lost homes wouldn’t be ready to deal with papers and pictures; too late, and they would have already thrown damaged documents away.
She said that with the record drought in Central Texas, and another peak wildfire season expected to start next month, “it’s going to happen again, and we’ll be ready to help.”