Photos, records, journals, any paper items that survived the fire at the Aberdeen Museum Saturday morning might stand a chance of being preserved and repaired if experts are able to get to them before mold sets in, some of those experts said Monday.

“For records, the big problem after a fire is that things are wet and you can’t go many days before you start developing mold,” said Washington State Archivist Steve Excell. “So we try to get in there as quickly as possible to recover any paper records, photos, volumes of rare books, journals, ledgers, there might even be some pioneer journals in there.”

Excell said this point was well punctuated in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in Louisiana in August of 2005.

“The longer documents are wet the greater the risk of mold, which is more damaging than the fire itself,” said Excell. “If anything survived it needs to be gotten to very quickly.”

Firefighters at the scene mopping up after the fire early Saturday evening told The Daily World they were pumping four feet of water out of the basement, the area where many historical documents and photos were stored.

“We realize there’s a fine line between red-tagging the building and making sure it’s structurally safe enough to allow access to the building for document recovery,” added Excell. “When we’re talking about historical records, time is the enemy, and we want to save as much history as possible.”

Excell’s crew of experts is well-versed in document recovery and preservation. He said their offices are stocked with materials needed for such an operation and a van can be loaded and quickly deployed to a scene. There is no charge for their services. “It’s more important to save history,” said Excell.

The first step in document preservation is freezing.

“Freezing stabilizes the document and protects it from mold,” said Excell. Documents are quickly frozen, then shipped to a freeze dryer facility, which uses the same type of freeze dryers used to make dried fruits and meats.

“They can then be shipped, just like you would ship frozen peas, to a freeze drying facility,” said Excell. His office in Olympia has two small freeze dryers, and he keeps a list of facilities across the country that work with document recovery. “They can be sent to California or the Midwest and after many months in the freeze drying process, they may be wrinkled and puckered, but they will survive.”

Excell said he has reached out to the museum to offer his services and will offer the services whenever it’s safe to do so, and if they are asked. They did the same thing after the devastating landslide in Oso in 2014, which killed 43 people and destroyed nearly 50 homes and structures.

“That was our first attempt to gather personal records and photos and Bibles,” said Excell. “As they were combing for victims and survivors they were also recouping precious treasures for families.” He said a team of three document preservation experts spent several weeks at the scene, recovering documents and even training some locals how to recover and return the items to their rightful owners.

Historical photos can survive water damage — again, if they are recovered fairly quickly. Excell said historical photographs, because they were emulsified in a developing fluid, can be washed, cleaned and properly dried.”