1937 Fox vault fire



On July 9, 1937, a major fire broke out in the 20th Century-Fox film storage facility. Gases produced by decaying films combined with high temperatures and inadequate ventilation resulted in spontaneous combustion. This event resulted in the death of one person and two injuries, which also destroyed all the archived film in the vaults, resulting in the loss of most of the silent films produced by the Fox Film Corporation before 1932.