Two helicopters, at least 200 county firefighters and studio firefighters tried to keep the blaze from spreading and completely destroying the Universal Studios film vault. Fire Inspector Darryl Jacobs says no one was injured. Jacobs estimates that at least 3 blocks of movie sets have been damaged by the fire.
The flames were shooting up more than 100 feet through the roof. Within 30 minutes one sound stage and several other buildings were gutted including the King Kong exhibit building, courthouse square from “Back to the Future, and a streetscape they use when filming NY scenes. Universal Studios is next door to the Sheraton Universal Hotel and other Universal Studios hotels but none of these hotels had to be evacuated.
40,000 to 50,000 videos and reels were kept in the Universal Studios vault, and many may have been damaged though firefighters recovered hundreds of reels. Stored in the vault was every film and television series’ footage that Universal has ever made, including Miami Vice and I Love Lucy. But NBC Universal President and COO, Ron Meyer says there are duplicates stored in a different locations. That’s a good thing or a lot of Hollywood history would have been lost today as a result of this Universal Studios Hollywood fire.
I don’t know what’s going on with all these fires lately. First Shaniqua Tompkins house goes up in smoke suspiciously and now this.
