The presence of the largest part of World Heritage sites in a seismically-prone area, like Italy, demands always greater measures to protect the most important built heritage, as well as the minor architecture. This requires a constant improvement of the current protocol from the damage survey and the provisional safety measures to the final intervention. This procedure is summarized, briefly, here and additional practical suggestions are given to improve the activities, based on the experience of on-site volunteers during the damage survey after the earthquake that struck Italy in 2016. Basic issues on the recurrent characteristics of historic masonry buildings, that make them often complex constructions with unexpected behaviour, are fundamental in the preparation of the volunteers in surveying damage. This helps in reducing evaluation mistakes and in designing the provisional safety structures aimed at the preservation of built heritage to the extent possible. Some examples of incorrect interpretation of the damage in historic buildings are reported here. In conclusion, only the awareness that it is necessary that a correct understanding of the recurrent or, on the contrary, peculiar, characteristics of a historic building plays a key role in the damage evaluation and in its subsequent protection from further damage.