A major fire broke out in a 20th Century-Fox film storage facility in Little Ferry, New Jersey, United States on July 9, 1937. One death and two injuries resulted from the fire, which also destroyed all the archived film in the vaults. The fire brought attention to the potential for decaying nitrate film to spontaneously ignite, and changed the focus of film preservation efforts to include a greater focus on fire safety.
About 1937 Fox vault fire in brief
A major fire broke out in a 20th Century-Fox film storage facility in Little Ferry, New Jersey, United States on July 9, 1937. One death and two injuries resulted from the fire, which also destroyed all the archived film in the vaults, resulting in the loss of most of the silent films produced by the Fox Film Corporation before 1932. The fire brought attention to the potential for decaying nitrate film to spontaneously ignite, and changed the focus of film preservation efforts to include a greater focus on fire safety. Nitrate fires burn rapidly and cannot be extinguished, as they are capable of burning even under water. Sustained temperatures of 100 °F or higher, large quantities of nitrateFilm, increased humidity, poor ventilation, and aged or decaying film have all been considered risk factors. Most such fires in film archives have taken place in heat waves during summer months, in closed facilities with limited ventilation, compounding several of these variables.
In the earlier 20th century nearby Fort Lee on the Hudson Palisades was home to many film studios of America’s first motion picture industry. Large and dangerous fires sometimes resulted. In October 1929, the Consolidated Film Industries facility was badly damaged by a nitrate fire. In July 1920, the shipping facility of its corporate successor, Famous Players-Lasky, was destroyed by a fire in Kansas City, Missouri, despite construction intended to minimize that risk. On May 4, 1897, one of the first major fires involving nitratefilm began when a Lumière projector caught fire at the Bazar de la Charité in Paris. The resulting blaze caused 126 deaths. The Lubin Manufacturing Company’s vault in Philadelphia exploded on June 13, 1914, followed on December 9, 1915, The New York studio of the Famous Players Film Company burned in September 1915. A 1933 study determined that the temperatures necessary for nitrate Film to self-ignite had been overestimated.
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