One British Archive: “Burning Archive”: The Barbados Department of Archives

Abstract On 18 June 2024, a fire devastated Block D of the Barbados Department of Archives (BDA), destroying irreplaceable local governance and health records. This disaster underscores the fragility of Caribbean archives, which face chronic underfunding, aging infrastructure, and climatic threats such as humidity, pests, and mold. Barbados’s documentary heritage is dispersed across local and global repositories. While digitization offers improved access, it cannot replace original records and introduces new risks of technological obsolescence and cost barriers. Post-pandemic, the BDA fire and closures of other local repositories disrupted research access for over a year, reminding us that archives need to be accessible for safeguarding national memory and governance. This article places the BDA fire within a larger context of regional vulnerabilities and examines policy gaps in disaster risk reduction (DRR) for Small Island Developing States (SIDS) in archives management. It argues for integrated strategies that balance modernization with conservation, prioritize cultural heritage in national planning, and strengthen collaboration among professional heritage managers in galleries, libraries, archives, and museums (GLAM). Sustained investment and transparent reporting are essential to protect and manage Barbados’s archives.