Massive fire at Universal Studios (Pictures)
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The AP reported a huge fire at Universal Studios this afternoon that's consuming old movie sets and apparently one of two duplicate film vaults. More from Google News sources. No word on how the fire started or when they expect to have it put out, even though they say it's "contained", it's still burning pretty badly from the last report I saw.
The L.A. Times has a short list of what's known to have been damaged and/or destroyed. I'm sure nobody is really overly concerned about sets since those can be rebuilt, even though it sucks to lose something iconic like the clock tower from Back to the Future. What instantly made me wince was hearing that the film vault was turning a bunch of reels into ash and choking smoke. While it's great that Universal has everything in that vault in duplicate at another location -- supposedly -- it seems like stuff you'd want to keep someplace that's not prone to bursting into flames.
MSNBC says that "According to Universal's Web site, there have been six previous big fires in the studios' history." Maybe it's just me, but shouldn't they have somebody look into doing some work on that place? I'm pretty sure having your buildings become raging infernos once every 16 years means that you're doing something wrong.
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