China News Service, Fuzhou, August 7 (Reporter Lin Chunyin) At about 21:00 on August 6, Wan'an Bridge, the longest existing ancient wooden arch bridge in China, caught fire and burned down.

The fire report issued by the Propaganda Department of Fujian Pingnan County Party Committee at 23:00 on August 6 stated, "At present, all open fires at the scene have been extinguished and no casualties have been reported. The cause of the fire is under investigation."

Wan'an Bridge was taken in 2019.

Photo by Lao Lin

Why did Wan'an Bridge catch fire?

　　Wan'an Bridge is located in Changqiao Village, Changqiao Town, Pingnan County, Fujian Province. It is a five-pier six-hole wooden arched house bridge.

The bridge is 98.2 meters long and 4.7 meters wide, with boat-shaped piers and unequal spans. The shortest arch span is 10.6 meters and the longest arch span is 15.2 meters.

The bridge house has 38 bays, 156 columns, a bucket-type wooden frame, a double-slope roof, and wooden benches on both sides.

　　According to "Yutian Zhilue", the bridge was built in the Song Dynasty.

It has a history of 917 years.

In the forty-seventh year of Emperor Kangxi of the Qing Dynasty, it was burned by fire, and it was rebuilt in the seventh year of Qianlong (1742), and it was repaired in subsequent dynasties.

On May 25, 2006, it was announced as one of the "Northeast Fujian Covered Bridges" as the sixth batch of national key cultural relics protection units.

　　The wooden arch bridge is the category with the highest technical content among the traditional wooden structure bridges in my country.

Tang Huancheng, a famous bridge expert, said in "The History of Science and Technology in China: Bridge Volume" that covered bridges "are the only ones in China in the history of bridges in the world".

In 2008, the "traditional construction techniques of wooden arch bridges" were included in the second batch of national intangible cultural heritage lists. .

　　According to the "Pingnan County Chronicle", there are more than 50 wooden arch bridges in Pingnan.

After the Wan'an Bridge was burnt down, there are 12 wooden arch covered bridges built in Song, Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasties. It is one of the counties with the largest number of wooden arch covered bridges in China.

　　According to the images of many photographers who have been following the covered bridge for a long time, there are no incense and Buddhist shrines on the Wan'an Bridge, and there are few tourists at night. So, where did the fire start?

Wan'an Bridge.

small flying knife

The second question is whether the cultural relics of the ancient covered bridges have been effectively protected?

　　Pingnan has taken various measures to protect the ancient covered bridges.

It is worth mentioning that on July 27, 2021, Pingnan County People's Court, Pingnan County People's Procuratorate, Pingnan County Culture and Tourism Bureau, PICC Property Insurance Pingnan Branch, Changqiao Town People's Government, Tangkou Town The People's Government, the People's Government of Shoushan Township and other departments signed a contract for judicial cooperation in the protection of the cultural heritage of the covered bridge, and signed a contract for the cultural heritage insurance of the covered bridge in Pingnan County.

　　The first batch of judicial cooperation cultural heritage protection insured objects are Baixiang Bridge, Qiancheng Bridge and Wan'an Bridge with the most historical and cultural value in the county. This is also the first "judicial + insurance" protection of ancient covered bridges in Fujian Province.

　　According to the Pingnan County Ancient Covered Bridge Cultural Relics Insurance Protection Agreement released by the official account of "Pingnan Court", during the insurance period, if the covered bridge is damaged due to fire, explosion, lightning strike, heavy rain, flood, etc. The cost or the cost of the original site reconstruction shall be compensated by the people's property insurance company according to the contract.

The insurance amount for each bridge is 1 million yuan (RMB), and the validity period is one year.

　　Now that the one-year deadline has passed, a fire broke out in Wan'an Bridge, and the cause of the fire is unknown.

Firefighting videos circulating on social media show that there are no fire hoses and fire extinguishers on the Wan'an Bridge, and people use buckets to fight the fire.

　　At 0:36 on the 7th, when the reporter from Chinanews.com released the report, the official Pingnan County re-released the "Notice on the Fire of Wan'an Bridge, Changqiao Town, Pingnan County" through the public account "Panorama Pingnan" and added a sentence: " In the next step, Pingnan County will evaluate the fire situation and make every effort to do follow-up work such as repairs."

　　We still have to ask, is the heritage insurance of the ancient covered bridge relics renewed in time?

Has the cultural heritage of the ancient covered bridges been effectively protected?

Wan'an Bridge, taken in April 2018.

Photo by Miao Fusen

Three questions: How to prevent the covered bridge from becoming a forgotten dream?

　　The beauty of the ancient covered bridge lies in the technique of connecting without one nail and one riveting, tenon and mortise, the scenery of the Changhong lying on the waves in the mountains and ravines, and the folk customs of the local people's beliefs and customs on the covered bridge.

The wooden arched bridges are mostly distributed at the junction of Zhejiang and Fujian. There are more than 100 wooden arched bridges since the Song Dynasty preserved in the mountainous counties and cities in southern Zhejiang and northern Fujian. for more.

　　Only in Pingnan County, Fujian, the locals describe these "secret bridges": there is the longest existing Wan'an Bridge in the country; there is the Shijin Bridge with a span of only 10 meters; there are five piers and six holes, and there are two piers and three holes. One pier with two holes, as well as a single hole with a span of 35 meters, Baixiang Bridge, known as "the first dangerous bridge in the south of the Yangtze River"; has been praised as "my country's wooden arch bridge" by bridge expert Mao Yisheng and many bridge experts inside and outside the province. The Longjing Bridge, which is a "model work", and the Qiancheng Bridge, which is designed to be in the shape of a rooster's wings...

　　"Traditional Construction Techniques of Chinese Wooden Arch Bridges" was selected into the United Nations "List of Intangible Cultural Heritage in Need of Urgent Protection". The application areas are Qingyuan and Taishun in Zhejiang, Shouning and Pingnan in Fujian. performance report.

　　In recent years, the provinces, cities and counties where the project is located have issued special funds for the inheritance activities of inheritors at all levels, and encouraged the public to participate in bridge-building activities.

It is understood that in the past four years, Zhejiang and Fujian have built 32 wooden arch bridges through fundraising and construction, and the team of inheritors has also expanded from 33 to 52.

　　However, in recent years, the protection status of wooden arch bridges has been worrying.

First, it is still difficult to resist the threat of natural disasters and fire damage. In 2016, three ancient covered bridges in Taishun County, Zhejiang Province were damaged by a typhoon.

In addition to being washed away by floods, Yuqing Bridge and Jianou Buyue Bridge in Wuyi Mountain in northern Fujian were both destroyed by fire.

　　Second, community practice is booming but young people’s participation is limited, and how to achieve intergenerational inheritance is still an issue to be solved.

A young architecture student in Shouning County became the inheritor of the wooden arch covered bridge and confessed to reporters that building a covered bridge in the deep mountains is "lonely and hard to beat".

Wan'an Bridge, taken in April 2018.

Photo by Miao Fusen

　　At present, Shouning County, Pingnan County, Zhouning County, Zhenghe County in Fujian Province, Taishun County, Qingyuan County and Jingning County in Zhejiang Province are all applying for the World Heritage List.

Twenty-two "Fujian and Zhejiang wooden arch bridges" in seven counties in Fujian and Zhejiang provinces were included in the "China World Cultural Heritage Preliminary List" by the State Administration of Cultural Heritage in 2012.

　　Since the establishment of the Working Organizing Committee in the seven counties of Zhejiang and Fujian in 2019, it has revised and improved the "Conservation of Fujian-Zhejiang Wooden Arch Bridges in China and the Statutes of the Alliance of Counties and Cities to Apply for World Heritage", including rescuing endangered wooden arch bridges, and establishing cooperation and coordination between counties and cities in applying for World Heritage. Mechanism, the establishment of the two provinces of Zhejiang and Fujian declaration agencies.

The seven counties regularly hold county-city joint meetings to study the development policy of wooden arched covered bridges, start the procedures for applying for the world cultural heritage of wooden arched covered bridges, jointly formulate action plans for the application, and formulate protection plans for wooden arched covered bridges in Zhejiang and Fujian.

　　A number of cultural protection personnel told the reporter of Chinanews.com that the protection of the ancient covered bridge is imminent.

"'Protection, inheritance, and utilization' have always been the three key words of cultural relics research, and among them, protection is the top priority, and the same is true in the study of wooden arch bridges." A cultural protection official said.

　　Liu Yan, an architectural historian who wrote the book "Weaving Wooden Arch Bridges", put forward a sharper point of view.

In an exclusive interview with a reporter from Chinanews.com, Liu Yan said that in fact, Wan'an Bridge was a cantilever bridge in the Republic of China, but it was changed to a wooden arch bridge when it was rebuilt in 1932.

It witnessed the upsurge of woven wooden arch bridges between Fujian and Zhejiang in the late Qing Dynasty and the Republic of China.

"In this boom, many small and medium-span bridges that "do not need a wooden arch structure" have been built with wooden arches, which is similar to the 'reinvigoration' of wooden arches under today's intangible cultural heritage boom."

　　Liu Yan said that Wan'an Bridge was built by Huang Chuncai's grandfather during the Republic of China.

In 1954, the Wan'an Bridge was washed away with two spans, and Huang Chuncai rebuilt it with his father.

In 2014, Huang Chuncai built a 3-span large wooden arch bridge in Baishuiyang.

"Therefore, the burning of Wan'an Bridge is naturally very distressing in terms of cultural relics, but it is not impossible to restore the technology inheritance."

　　"Objectively speaking, the bridges built by the Huang family in 1932 and 1954 are beautiful, harmonious, 'comfortable' and 'elegant', but the bridge built in 2014 seems rigid and unbalanced." Liu Yan pointed out that the same family's technical heritage, even the same People's technical skills, why were 1932 and 1954 pleasing, but 2014 was unsatisfactory?

"So after 2022, what if the Wan'an Bridge is rebuilt by 'traditional craftsmen' again? Will it be a continuation of tradition, or will it be a fake antique? What are the answers and professional guidelines that architecture can give here? Where?" (End)