Fire code and environmental issues are forcing Brown University to close its Haffenreffer Museum of Anthropology, in Bristol, as of Aug. 30.

Bristol’s fire marshal notified the university last year that the museum buildings’ exits, doorways, storage rooms and fire-alarm systems do not meet the state fire code. The fire marshal gave Brown until July 1 to remedy the problems, according to a university news release.

A consultant hired by Brown found more problems related to the complex’s fire safety, alarm and fire-suppression systems, as well as noncompliance with provisions of the Americans with Disabilities Act. What’s more, the aging buildings are susceptible to insect infestations, mold and climate control problems, further putting the museum’s collections at risk of damage.

The university has determined that it would be too costly to rehabilitate the buildings. Instead, the university said it plans to relocate the museum closer to its Providence campus, to make it more accessible to students, faculty and the public and to better protect the collection’s 100,000 ethnographic and archaeological artifacts from the Americas, Asia, Africa, the Middle East, Europe and Oceania.

In the interim, the museum’s staff will prepare the collection for a move, if necessary, to a temporary location.

A satellite location was opened in Brown’s Manning Hall gallery, on the Providence campus, in 2005. Brown University has run the Haffenreffer Museum, on Tower Street overlooking Mount Hope Bay, since 1955. For several years it has been hoping to move it at least closer to Providence. In the 1990s, there was a brief effort to relocate it to the former Old Stone Bank building in the downtown.