Fire is one of the horrific events that could lead to death and total destruction of buildings. Many great buildings were lost on fire. Many towns and cities were rebuilt because of great fires. Heritage buildings are recognized as over 50 years of age and built with distinct architectural features of its time. Nonetheless, these buildings present a great risk as it is often not well prepared for current fire hazard. This paper reviews the fire safety management system for heritage buildings in Malaysia based on selected research carried out.

Heritage buildings represent state of the art at the time of their construction. Materials used that are often viewed critically today concerning fire safety. Preventive measures and any other active systems can prevent untoward incidences to heritage buildings. So, for a sound fire safety concept, several considerations can be made. Hence, by reviewing two heritage buildings that involved in the fire which are Shuri Okinawa Castle and Paris Notre Dame Cathedral, this paper is aimed to establish challenges faced by historical building in the event of a fire by referring to the selected case study and to determine whether minimal intervention imposed in passive fire protection provided in the premises is a good practice so that can be referred by others heritage buildings.Keywords: Fire Safety; Fire Protection; Heritage Buildings; Minimum InterventioneISSN: 2398-4287 © 2020. The Authors. Published for AMER ABRA cE-Bs by e-International Publishing House, Ltd., UK. This is an open access article under the CC BYNC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). Peer–review under responsibility of AMER (Association of Malaysian Environment-Behaviour Researchers), ABRA (Association of Behavioural Researchers on Asians) and cE-Bs (Centre for Environment-Behaviour Studies), Faculty of Architecture, Planning & Surveying, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Malaysia.DOI: https://doi.org/10.21834/e-bpj.v5i13.2091