A single spark turned millions of feet of history into a conflagration

History · Published 8 October 2026 Swipe more like this →

In short: In 1978, a sudden "thump" in a Maryland vault signaled a catastrophe. A fire tore through the National Archives, incinerating 12.6 million feet of irreplaceable nitrate film. This wasn't just a loss of property, but a massive erasure of visual history that left investigators debating the cause for decades.

At midday on 7 December 1978, an accident took place at the National Archives and Records Service (NARS) site located in Suitland, Maryland. Employees in Building A heard a sound like a parking lot fender bender before smoke filled the hallways. The fire was fueled by highly flammable nitrocellulose, the industry standard for motion picture film from the 1890s to the early 1950s. As nitrate film decomposes, it becomes increasingly susceptible to self-ignition and can release combustible, poisonous gases.

The scale of the loss was immense: approximately 12.6 million feet of Universal Pictures newsreel footage and outtakes were destroyed. Much of this footage, specifically volumes 14 to 17, covered the critical years of 1941 to 1945. While the vaults were designed with 27 individual compartments to localize fires, the blaze was too intense. A back-draft explosion during rescue efforts even injured two firefighters and left a dozen others treated for smoke inhalation.

The cause remains a subject of dispute. A government investigation suspected a contractor's power tool sparked the blaze, noting that workers had fatefully disabled a third of the building's sprinkler heads while upgrading the air conditioning. However, contractors and fire officials pointed toward a malfunctioning air conditioning system that had been reported low on Freon months earlier. Despite the loss, a massive preservation project completed in 2010 successfully duplicated the remaining 15,000 reels of the collection.

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