1937 Fox vault fire

Fire at film storage facility in New Jersey July 2022 1937 Fox vault fire Little Ferry facility after fire.jpg Piles of ruined film cans outside the fire-damaged vault building A pile of metal cans outside a fire-damaged brick building 1937 07 09 Little Ferry, New Jersey, United States 40.8550 -74.0475 region:US-NJ_type:event inline,title Spontaneous ignition of Nitrate film resulting from heat wave 1 2 Destruction of archived silent films of the Fox Film Corporation and Educational Pictures A major fire occurred in a 20th Century-Fox film-storage facility in Little Ferry, New Jersey, United States, on July 9, 1937. Flammable nitrate film had previously contributed to several fires in film-industry laboratories, studios and vaults, although the precise causes were often unknown. In Little Ferry, gasses produced by decaying film, combined with high temperatures and inadequate ventilation, resulted in spontaneous combustion. One death and two injuries resulted from the fire, which also destroyed all of the archived film in the vaults, resulting in the loss of most of the silent films produced by the Fox Film Corporation before 1932. Also destroyed were negatives from several other studios. 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. Background Nitrate film The early motion-picture industry primarily used film stock made of nitrocellulose, commonly called nitrate film. This film is flammable and produces its own oxygen supply as it burns. Nitrate fires burn rapidly and cannot be extinguished, as they are capable of burning even underwater. Nitrocellulose is also subject to thermal decomposition and hydrolysis, degrading over time in the presence of high temperatures and moisture. This decaying film stock releases nitrogen oxides that contribute to the decay and allow the damaged film to burn more easily. Nitrate film can spontaneously combust, but considerable uncertainty exists about the circumstances necessary for self-ignition, partly because of wide variation in the production of early stock. Risk factors include sustained temperatures of at least 100 °F, high humidity, poor ventilation, aging or decaying film and the storage of large numbers of nitrate films. Most such fires in film archives have occurred during summer heat waves and in closed facilities with limited ventilation, compounding several of these variables. Especially in confined areas, such fires can result in explosions. On May 4, 1897, one of the first major fires involving nitrate film began when a Lumière projector caught fire at the Bazar de la Charité in Paris, and the resulting blaze caused 126 deaths. In the United States, a series of fires occurred at industry facilities. The Lubin Manufacturing Company's vault in Philadelphia exploded on June 13, 1914, followed on December 9 by a fire that destroyed Thomas Edison's laboratory complex in West Orange, New Jersey.Now the site of the Thomas Edison National Historical Park The New York studio of the Famous Players Film Company burned in September 1915. 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 fire risk. The United Film Ad Service vault, also in Kansas City, burned on August 4, 1928, and a fire was reported at Pathé Exchange nine days later. In October 1929, the Consolidated Film Industries facility was badly damaged by a nitrate fire.Slide 2000 11–13 Spontaneous combustion was not proven to have occurred in any of these fires, and the possibility of self-ignition may not have been recognized as possible before a 1933 study determined that the minimum temperatures necessary to cause the phenomenon had been overestimated. Little Ferry Earlier in the 20th century, Fort Lee on the Hudson Palisades was home to many film studios of America's first motion picture industry. Koszarski Richard Fort Lee: The Film Town John Libbey Publishing 2004 https://books.google.com/books?id=5w0r8YKan04C&q=Fort+Lee:+the+film+town+Door+Richard+Koszarski 0-86196-653-8 When Little Ferry, New Jersey, contractor William Fehrs was hired to construct a film-storage facility in 1934, he designed the structure to be fireproof. The building had 12 inch cm on brick outer walls and a reinforced concrete roof. Internally, it was divided into 48 individual vaults, each enclosed behind a steel door and separated by 8 inch cm 0 on brick interior walls. The local fire department confirmed Fehrs' fireproofing. The building had neither a fire sprinkler system nor mechanical ventilation, and no security guard was employed to watch the facility. Despite the potential fire danger of stored film, the building was located in a residential neighborhood. Film-processing company DeLuxe Laboratories owned the building and rented it to 20th Century-Fox to store the silent films acquired from Fox Film Corporation after its merger with Twentieth Century Pictures.Slide 2000 13 Fire thumb|thumbtime=20|Footage of the fire, taken by the chief of the Little Ferry Fire Department|alt=Film footage of a building on fire and firemen attempting to extinguish it Northern New Jersey experienced a heat wave in July 1937, with daytime temperatures of 100 °F and warm nights. The sustained heat contributed to nitrate decomposition in the film vaults, and the building's ventilation was inadequate to prevent a dangerous buildup of gasses. At some time shortly after 2:00a.m. on July 9, spontaneous ignition occurred in the vault at the building's northwest corner. Truck driver Robert Davison observed flames coming from one of the structure's window vents, and within five minutes used a municipal fire alarm call box to report the fire. Davison then attempted to awaken the residents of the surrounding houses, many of whom were already alerted to the situation by the noise and intense heat. As the contents of other vaults ignited, bursts of flame erupted 100 feet horizontally across the ground from the windows and at a similar distance into the air from the building's roof vents.Slide 2000 13 When the fire spread to the vaults in the south and east of the building, the vaults exploded, damaging the brickwork and destroying window frames. Anna Greeves and her sons John and Charles were caught in a "sheet of flame" while attempting to flee the area. All three were seriously burned, and 13-year-old Charles died from his injuries on July 19. Other families were able to escape unharmed, but the fire spread to five neighboring residences and destroyed two vehicles. Little Ferry firefighters first arrived at 2:26a.m., followed by companies from Hawthorne, Ridgefield Park, River Edge and South Hackensack. A total of 150 men employing 14 hose streams extinguished the fire by 5:30a.m. All of the film in the facility was destroyed, with more than 40,000 reels of negatives and prints burned to ashes inside their film cans. The building was also badly damaged. Exploding vaults had destroyed segments of both the exterior walls and interior partitions and had deformed the structure's concrete roof. Total property damage was estimated at $150,000–200,000.Approximately $US 150000 1937US 200000 1937 in US dollars Fifty-seven truckloads of burned film were hauled from the site in order to extract the remaining silver content. Each can contained about five cents' worth of silver,Slide 2000 13 and the salvaged metal returned $2,000.About $US 2000 1937 in US dollars Legacy thumb|left|alt=A badly burned house|Damage to 361 Main Street, the residence closest to the vaults Although 20th Century-Fox officials at the time remarked that "only old films" were destroyed, the fire is now understood as a significant loss of American film heritage. Motion picture historian Anthony Slide called the destruction of the Fox vault "the most tragic" American nitrate fire.Slide 2000 13 The highest-quality examples of every Fox film produced prior to 1932 were destroyed; all known copies of many films had been stored in the facility. Films lost to the fire include those featuring stars such as Theda Bara, Shirley Mason, William Farnum and Gladys Brockwell.Solomon 2011 1 Most of Tom Mix's 85 films for Fox were archived exclusively at Little Ferry.Birchard 1993 133 Director J. Gordon Edwards had directed all of the highest-grossing epics for Fox, and all of the masters for his films were lost (although a few that were housed elsewhere survive as low-quality prints). The complete body of film work of some actors such as Valeska Suratt was destroyed.Pratt 1982 3 According to Museum of Modern Art film curator Dave Kehr, "there are entire careers that don't exist because of [the fire]." Because some copies were located elsewhere, some of Fox's silent films survive as lower quality prints or fragments, but more than 75% of Fox's feature films from before 1930 are completely lost.Solomon 2011 1 The Little Ferry vaults also held works by other film studios that had contracted with Fox for distribution. Educational Pictures lost more than 2,000 silent negatives and prints,Neibaur 2010 80 although the company's sound films were not stored in the vaults. Also destroyed were the original negative of D. W. Griffith's Way Down East (which Fox had purchased in order to remake), the negative for the controversial Christie Productions sponsored film The Birth of a Baby and films produced by Sol Lesser under his imprints Atherton Productions, Peck's Bad Boy Corporation and Principal Pictures. Archival material intended for the Museum of Modern Art's film library was lost as well.Koszarski 2005 339 thumb|Map of the area involved in the fire, including neighboring dwellings (marked "Dwg")|alt=refer to article text The destruction of the Little Ferry facility spurred an interest in fire safety as an aspect of film preservation. Investigators determined that the spontaneous combustion of decomposing film stock was responsible for the fire, a cause that had not been identified with previous large nitrate-film fires. They suggested that the older nitrocellulose film in the archive was of lower quality than that of their current film and was therefore more unstable. Three months after the vault fire, the Society of Motion Picture Engineers' Committee on Preservation of Film cited "recent and rather extensive film fires" as evidence that existing preservation efforts had failed to adequately address the risk of fire. Heavier reinforcement of film vaults was suggested in order to prevent fires in a single vault from destroying entire archival facilities. Film-storage cabinets with ventilation and cooling systems were also proposed, as was further research into improving the quality of cellulose acetate film to encourage its use as a safer replacement for nitrate film.Maines 2013 66 By the 1950s, the use of nitrate film in the United States had been essentially eliminated.Harvey Mahard 2014 186 See also America's first motion picture industry List of building or structure fires List of Fox Film films 1965 MGM vault fire, also destroyed many silent and early sound films 1978 Suitland National Archives film vault fire 2008 Universal Studios fire, destroyed thousands of audio master tapes Cleveland Clinic fire of 1929, caused by the combustion of X-ray film Notes References 30em $45,000 fire drives families from homes in Little Ferry Bergen Evening Record 48 28 July 9, 1937 1–2 https://www.newspapers.com/clip/27625459/article_about_1937_fox_vault_fire_p_1/ https://web.archive.org/web/20190126001104/https://www.newspapers.com/clip/27625459/article_about_1937_fox_vault_fire_p_1/ January 26, 2019 live 'Life' banned for "Birth of a Baby" pictures Motion Picture Herald 131 3 April 16, 1938 18 https://archive.org/stream/motionpictureher1301unse#page/n648/mode/1up July 16, 2016 https://web.archive.org/web/20160427200704/https://archive.org/stream/motionpictureher1301unse#page/n648/mode/1up April 27, 2016 live Bradley John G. Changing aspects of the film-storage problem Journal of the Society of Motion Picture Engineers 1938 30 3 303–317 10.5594/J14682 Report of the Committee on Preservation of Film Journal of the Society of Motion Picture Engineers 1938 30 3 300–302 10.5594/J14681 free Fox N. J. film storage plant swept by flames The Film Daily 72 8 July 10, 1937 2 https://archive.org/stream/filmdaily72wids#page/n85/mode/1up/ July 16, 2016 https://web.archive.org/web/20161009031831/https://archive.org/stream/filmdaily72wids#page/n85/mode/1up/ October 9, 2016 live Crafting a new exhibit: Edison's fire companies and the Great Fire of 1914 Thomas Edison National Historical Park September 8, 2013 https://www.nps.gov/edis/blogs/crafting-a-new-exhibit-edisons-fire-companies-and-the-great-fire-of-1914.htm January 27, 2015 https://web.archive.org/web/20150425234047/http://www.nps.gov/edis/blogs/Crafting-a-New-Exhibit-Edisons-Fire-Companies-and-the-Great-Fire-of-1914.htm April 25, 2015 live Heckman Heather Burn after viewing, or, fire in the vaults: nitrate decomposition and combustibility American Archivist 73 2 2010 483–506 10.17723/aarc.73.2.n2746075wr84356t free Hudson M. C. MacLaren Robert Nitrate film testing for the National Archives: December 1978 fire investigation NOS-IHTR-567 Naval Ordnance Station, Indian Head, Maryland August 31, 1979 http://www.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc?Location=U2&doc=GetTRDoc.pdf&AD=ADB040437 https://web.archive.org/web/20150224031826/http://www.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc?Location=U2&doc=GetTRDoc.pdf&AD=ADB040437 dead February 24, 2015 Jones Kristin M. 'William Fox Presents: Restorations and Rediscoveries from the Fox Film Corporation' review The Wall Street Journal June 21, 2018 https://www.wsj.com/articles/william-fox-presents-restorations-and-rediscoveries-from-the-fox-film-corporation-review-1526930402 January 18, 2019 https://web.archive.org/web/20181110025011/https://www.wsj.com/articles/william-fox-presents-restorations-and-rediscoveries-from-the-fox-film-corporation-review-1526930402 November 10, 2018 live Fire losses of the week Fire and Water Engineering 68 5 August 4, 1920 252 Pierce David The legion of the condemned – why American silent films perished Film History 9 1 5–22 1997 Fox Film storage fire Quarterly of the National Fire Protection Agency 31 2 1937 136–142 Scanlan Ernest A. Film fire in 12-Story Kansas City building Fire and Water Engineering 68 8 August 25, 1920 401, 403 Trustee asks $500,000 for films lost in fire The Film Daily 79 66 April 4, 1941 2 https://archive.org/stream/filmdail79wids#page/n31/mode/1up/ July 16, 2016 https://web.archive.org/web/20161009024744/https://archive.org/stream/filmdail79wids#page/n31/mode/1up/ October 9, 2016 live Players' Film fire lessons The Weekly Underwriter 93 18 October 30, 1915 562 Bibliography Spoken Wikipedia en 1937 Fox vault fire.ogg 2016-01-01 Birchard Richard S. King Cowboy: Tom Mix and the Movies Riverwood Press 1993 978-1-880756-05-8 The Preservation Management Handbook: A 21st-Century Guide for Libraries, Archives, and Museums Harvey Ross Mahard Martha R. Rowman and Littlefield 978-0-7591-2315-1 2014 Koszarski Richard Fort Lee: The Film Town (1904–2004) 2005 Indiana University Press 978-0-86196-652-3 Maines Rachel Asbestos and Fire: Technological Tradeoffs and the Body at Risk 2013 Rutgers University Press 978-0-8135-6472-2 Neibaur James L. The Fall of Buster Keaton: His Films for MGM, Educational Pictures, and Columbia 2010 Scarecrow Press 978-0-8108-7682-8 Pratt George C. Faces and Fabrics/Feathers and Furs George Eastman House 1982 978-0-935398-05-2 Slide Anthony Nitrate Won't Wait: A History of Film Preservation in the United States 2000 McFarland 978-0-7864-0836-8 Solomon Aubrey The Fox Film Corporation, 1915–1935: A History and Filmography 2011 McFarland 978-0-7864-6286-5 Category:1937 in American cinema Category:1937 fires in the United States Category:20th Century Studios Category:Fires in New Jersey Category:1937 in New Jersey 1937 Fox vault fire Category:July 1937 in the United States Category:Warehouse fires in the United States Category:Little Ferry, New Jersey Category:Articles containing video clips Category:Nitrate-film fires in the United States Category:Cinema of New Jersey