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When Film Ignited Itself: The Night 40,000 Reels Vanished
When Film Ignited Itself: The Night 40,000 Reels Vanished
Heat, sealed vaults, and a material that carries its own oxygen: a July heat wave and forty-eight brick-and-steel vaults turned a certified "fireproof" storage into an unstoppable furnace. Over three hours and twenty-four minutes, more than forty thousand reels-many the only surviving elements of silent-era films-were consumed; how could a building built to protect cinema become the thing that destroyed it?
In this episode, we recount the chain of technical, environmental, and human factors behind the Little Ferry fire and what was…
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