Inferno in Los Angeles is Burning Down Universal Studios.

[tomthedude]

http://edition.cnn.com/2008/US/06/01/studio.fire/?imw=Y&iref=mpstoryemail

LOS ANGELES, California (CNN) -- A massive fire Sunday at Universal Studios destroyed the building housing the King Kong exhibit and damaged a video library vault, officials said.

The fire is still burning at the video vault, Los Angeles Fire Chief Douglas Barry said. Firefighters have contained the blaze, but not extinguished it, officials said.

-Tom-

 

[dmw007]

Looks like a big blaze, I hope no one was injured.

 

[PlaceofDis]

that blaze is huge, hopefully no one has been injured, good luck to the firefighters there, doesn't seem like an end is in sight last i heard

 

[Drumjim85]

down with the man!!!

 

[iJohnHenry]

down with the man!!!

Right, and be damned with the FF's that risk their lives to contain the blaze.

Old film stock burns like a bitch. If the "vaults" have been breached by the fire it will be hard to stop it from destroying everything in the vault.

 

[Everythingisnt]

Gosh I hope the fire doesn't get into the film.. iJohnHenry is right, old celluloid film goes up really easy.

 

[0098386]

News is bad and all, but I've just noticed that news sites never display large resolution pictures. Even the BBC.

 

[Drumjim85]

Does anyone else see a grumpy old man in that smoke cloud?

 

[iJohnHenry]

old celluloid film goes up really easy.

That's because it's petroleum-based.

You know the old saying, "Never pour water on a gasoline fire!!"

 

[italiano40]

I feel bad, expect they said the have dups of the films that got destroy so that is good

 

[anim8or]

Does anyone else see a grumpy old man in that smoke cloud?

Yes i do!

Puffy cheeks like a dog!!! Strange!

 

[iJohnHenry]

Did you check photo #4.

And that's in full daylight.

 

[killerrobot]

Saw it this morning at 5:30. It had some weird glowing effect to it. Tried figuring out what it was when I finally heard that it was the film vault at universal studios I could only imagine all the film and plastic case chemicals burning that could give it that glowing effect. That should help out the air quality.

 

[MacNut]

Did they lose the master negatives or the copies. They said something like 50,000 pieces of film were lost, including I love Lucy.

 

[Doctor Q]

It's been burning for something like 18 hours now!

 

[Drumjim85]

and so far 3 fire fighters have suffered minor injuries.

 

[dmw007]

Did they lose the master negatives or the copies. They said something like 50,000 pieces of film were lost, including I love Lucy.

Now that is a shame, I Love Lucy was, and still is, a great show.

It's been burning for something like 18 hours now!

That is incredible, it is hard to imagine the blaze lasting that long.

 

[MacNut]

The fire destroyed two New York and New England sets featured in such movies as "Back to the Future, "When Harry Met Sally," "The Sting" and the upcoming "Changeling," directed by Clint Eastwood.

"These are some of the most widely used urban big street film sets in the business. It's an unfortunate loss, but I'm sure they can quickly rebuild," said Jim Yeager, former head of public relations for Universal Parks and Resorts.

Los Angeles often has stood in for New York in the movies, but recently the number of people living downtown has made filming in the city's core difficult, increasing demand for lots such as the one razed at Universal. Only two other studios -- Warner Bros. and Paramount -- have New York sets and they often are booked, location managers said.

"It's a big lot and it's a major lot and it's always busy, and if you take a chunk of that away -- that's not a good thing for the industry," said David Berthiaume, president of the Location Managers Guild of America. Berthiaume shot many episodes of the science fiction television series "Sliders" at Universal.Of the TV productions on the lot, which include "Desperate Housewives," "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation" and "Life," only CBS' "Ghost Whisperer," which stars Jennifer Love Hewitt, was touched by the fire. Two of the supernatural drama's eight locations were damaged, according to a studio spokesman.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-production2-2008jun02,0,2024816.story
Photos

 

[Doctor Q]

The fire is mostly or completely out now. Universal Citywalk, a popular evening area, was never cleared to reopen today, but the whole park should be open tomorrow.

A number of sets burned, but the famous "Back to the Future" lot was spared this time. A previous fire, 1990 I think they said, caused them to add fire-protection systems to the sets they rebuilt, but this fire overwhelmed even those protections, apparently due to lack of water pressure.

The neighborhood around Universal Studios had smoke and a bad smell, from thousands of videotapes that burned. The main vault of film negatives was not affected.

 

[bbbensen]

Im going there this Christmas. I hope its all fixed....

 

[rt_brained]

Im going there this Christmas. I hope its all fixed....

I'm sure they'll be working overtime in order to restore New York Street and Courthouse Square, but the King Kong exhibit is old enough that they may decide to develop an entirely new concept to replace it.

 

[Eric Lewis]

this is not the theme park

its where the actual movies are filmed

 

[rt_brained]

The main vault of film negatives was not affected.

Still speculative, but preliminary estimates are 40,000 to 50,000 copies of video lost in the fire.

I haven't heard for sure, but the video assets may have been largely dub masters used for fulfilling dub requests from their domestic and international client TV stations who broadcast Universal's many syndicated TV shows. If that's the case, then no, master copies would not have been housed in the same location—specifically for this type of scenario, but they will be busy for quite some time creating replacement dub masters.

 

[killerrobot]

If that's the case, then no, master copies would not have been housed in the same location—specifically for this type of scenario, but they will be busy for quite some time creating replacement dub masters.

Hmm.. methinks you may have a possible reason for the fire -- job security, hmm..

 

[garybUK]

Films from hollywood are so bad at the moment anyway, no doubt they will turn this into a film.... at least it will be the first that's not a sequel or a remake of another film