Universal Studios Fire On Historic Back Lot (VIDEO)

***UPDATE*** A fire at Universal Studios has destroyed a set from "Back to the Future," the King Kong exhibit and a video vault containing more than 40,000 videos and reels.

Los Angeles County fire Captain Frank Reynoso says the blaze broke out just before dawn Sunday on a backlot stage at the 400-acre property. The fire has been contained.

Officials say the iconic courthouse square from "Back to the Future," has been destroyed, and the famous clocktower that enabled star Michael J. Fox's character to time travel has been damaged.

NBC Universal President and Chief Operating Officer Ron Meyer says 40,000 to 50,000 videos and reels were damaged in the video vault, but there are duplicates in a different location.

UNIVERSAL CITY, Calif. — A large fire raged on a back lot at Universal Studios on Sunday, devouring several movie sets and the theme park's King Kong attraction, officials said.

The King Kong exhibit is a stop on the studio's tram tour where the giant ape bellows at passengers and artificial banana scent fills the area, studio spokesman Eliot Sekuler said.

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Los Angeles County Fire Inspector Daryl Jacobs said at least one building had burned and as many as three blocks of movie facades were destroyed.

Two mock New York and New England streets used for movie making and tourist displays were "a total loss," he said.

Though the fire was contained, it was still raging, Jacobs said.

The blaze broke out just before dawn on a sound stage at the 400-acre property, fire Capt. Frank Reynoso said. There was at least one explosion.

A thick column of smoke rose thousands of feet into the air and for a time helicopters swept in to drop water.

More than 100 firefighters were trying to prevent the flames from spreading to nearby brush, Reynoso said. One firefighter was hospitalized for unspecified injuries.

Sekuler said the theme park would open Sunday, though the studio tour would not go to the King Kong part of the attraction. He said a commercial shoot was going on when the fire broke out. The cause of the fire is under investigation.

Universal Studios is located nine miles north of downtown Los Angeles that has thrill rides and a back lot where movies and television shows are filmed.

Some of the more familiar attractions on the back lot are the clock tower from the "Back To The Future" movies and the house featured in "Psycho."

Scenes from several blockbuster films and television shows have been filmed at the studios, including "War of the Worlds," "When Harry met Sally" and "Scrubs."

Comments

[butonelife]

And it was looking like a relatively clear day around here. Oh well...

[olivia]

Is this the beginning of Hillary scorching the earth?

I hope everyone there is safe.

[GiannaX]

The air quality sucks big time!
Thank God no one was hurt. There are dups of the footage in the vaults at another location.
No determination on the cause yet. Sad, but the sets and rides will be rebuilt as they were in 1990.

[avenger]

First and foremost, let's hope the firemen are safe on the job. Secondly, let's hope the vaults are OK - that's priceless footage that can't be replaced (although I had read that much of the older footage had been moved years ago to other storage areas off site - some salt mine somewhere). I'm fairly sure the vault would have had a Halon fire extinguishing system in place though.

As for the lot, much of it was wrecked in the 1990 fire, and rebuilt thereafter, so as for it being "historic," it was really only 18 years old. And, much of New York Street was rebuilt in 1974 after the filming of "Earthquake" prior to that. Regardless, it is such a big loss. Looks like they did lose the courthouse ("Back to the Future") along with NY Street. The "Psycho" house is quite a ways from this section of the backlot, so that should be safe, along with the "Leave it to Beaver / Desperate Housewives" street (which was moved in the 1980's from near the NY Street area to its current location on the lot).

Let's hope they get this knocked down quickly, and that they didn't lose the vault.

[pfc1369]

Thank you so much for telling us all what to hope for.

[DrJimmy]

Waiting for the religious right to say...."Hollywood is reaping what they sow" "God is sending a message to the left winged liberals" Let's see how long it takes...

[darthdarcy]

Damn..!

[RaraAvis17]

Their customer count must be way down...

[plages]

Insurance?

[IngeniousGirl]

no, this is a treasured part of US. I've toured back lot many times and the entire facility is top notch. Sounds more like an electrical fire.

[ohiomark]

I hear they were filming the story of the Democrat convention in Denver.

[butonelife]

No, they were filming the smooth three-point landing that Bushco airlines is going to execute for the Republican Party. Get your movie lots straight.

[kellygrrrl]

yikes! there are a lot of homes in those hills.
pretty scary when So Cal is already burning in May

[chinaskee]

I bet the Phantom had something to do with this.

[bobo209]

Fire in the sky smoke on the waaaaaaaaaaaaaaattttttttttttttttttterrrrr..

[peterdangit]

Man... they were shooting a new movie "The burning of the set" and these people now ruined the scene. Stop! Stop! Get out of the set! Again!

[pmorlan]

I hope they get the fire under control before too many of the historical sets are lost. I dread to hear what was lost.

[ryder]

I heard a newscaster on MSNBC say that at least one film vault was on fire. And, as a helicopter was flying over the scene taking a live shot, you could clearly see a line of firemen removing objects from one of the burning buildings and loading them in the back of a truck. They were about the size of film canisters. If true, it could be a complete disaster because many of those reels were probably one of a kind and never duplicated.

[NoMercy]

That's true. The only irreplaceable things are those reels. Let's hope it's just a bunch of timber that's going up in smoke.

[Ruefrex]

Just as clarification, the video vault is the building that's currently burning and the studio's got duplicates of everything in there, so nothing was lost. The film vault was untouched, but there are duplicates of everything in there, too. My first job was at Universal. Very sad to watch. And the sky's going to be pretty ugly for awhile...

[zeiben]

I believe Flavor Flav may have foreseen this....

[GiannaX]

Why is a tragic fire fodder for a bad joke?

[TheEmptinessOfTruthiness]

What? Its Hollywood and nobody was even injured.

What makes it tragic?

[pizzmoe]

Good question. I wonder if people would laugh is their house was burning down.

[raw915]

Finally a little reality in their sensationalist filmmaking.