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A major fire occurred in a 20th Century-Fox film-storage facility in Little Ferry, New Jersey, 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, gases 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.
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 38 °C, 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.
Northern New Jersey experienced a heat wave in July 1937, with daytime temperatures of 38 °C 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 gases. At some time shortly after 2:00 a.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.
Little Ferry firefighters first arrived at 2:26 a.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 5:30 a.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. 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, and the salvaged metal returned $2,000.
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.
The complete body of film work of some actors such as Valeska Suratt was destroyed. 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.
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.
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. By the 1950s, the use of nitrate film in the United States had been essentially eliminated.
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out of everything thrown into it.
Marcus Aurelius
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