The fire, which was caused by an electrical short circuit in a shed near the building in Central Jakarta, affected 817 artifacts that consisted mostly of replicas, according to museum officials. No casualties were reported in the incident.

A team formed by the Education, Culture, Research and Technology Ministry’s Museum and Cultural Heritage (MCB) agency to restore the damaged collections has so far managed to identify 715 of the total damaged artifacts. Most of them are currently being assessed by the team to see how severe the damage is.

MCB acting head Ahmad Mahendra said his office had spoken with independent experts last month to discuss ways to restore the collections after his team completed the classification of the damage.

Based on the experts’ analysis, there are 171 collections that should be put under the heavily affected classification, meaning that they are heavily contaminated and their state could worsen if not remediated as soon as possible. These collections are made of iron and copper and the MCB team is currently taking their samples to determine the extent of contamination.

"After these tests are completed, we plan to hold a second discussion with the experts to get their recommendations on how and who has the skill to restore these collections,” Ahmad said in a statement on Wednesday.

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